Traveller-digest      Monday, August 23 1999      Volume 1999 : Number 1000



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

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Bureaucrats was Puzzling Sig
[none]
Re: Shirt Pictures
Will the real Strephon please stand up! (Re: Cloning)
Hard Times
slightly OT: Looking to locate...
Re: Re Slings
Trav T-shirts
Re: Low ship weight
Re: Thrust effects (was HEPlar lives!)
Re: Bureaucrats (was re: Puzzling Sig)
Re: Re Slings
Re: Hudson-class Lander (GTL9)
Re: Slings and Outrageous Fortunes of War
Re: Thrust effects (was HEPlar lives!)
Grav Pong
Re: Low ship weight (and Grav Plates too)
Re: Aslan Language
Re: Low ship weight
Re: RE Squad Leader
Re: Thrust effects (was HEPlar lives!)
Re: Hudson-class Lander (GTL9)

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

Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 17:28:32 -0400 (EDT)
From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
Subject: Bureaucrats was Puzzling Sig

>
>The Romans killed all those who opposed meetings? Lethal bureaucrat-mind...
>
>ObTrav: The First Rule of any organization is Self-Perpetuation; the Second
>Rule is Empire-Building. After 1,100 years of growth and competition, what
>kind of Byzantine (and I use the word advisedly) bureaucratic organizations
>and weird turf battles exist in your Traveller universe? Perhaps this is
>why we never see a coherent picture of the Imperial Bureaucracy -- there
>just isn't one.

IMoJ vs IN, IISS vs everybody, Marines vs IISS, IMoT (trade) vs IN and
IISS, Local nobles vs b'crats appointed from higher up the food chain, IMo
Education vs every school district and local government known to Imperial
Mankind, IMo Standards vs IMoT, Auditors vs Everybody.

Auditors: IMTU I have used Barrayaran style auditors since I read about
imperial warrants... well before I read anything by Bujold. I allow sector
and arch dukes to issue similar warrants for their own turf, including all
vassal held lands. I use two warrants: The "Bring all force to bear to aid
the bearer" and the "you can't arrest this man, and if you do, and the duke
finds out, you WILL be shot". Auditors tend to hide their warrants unless
absolutely needed. And yes, most of them seem as ... uhmm.... barely safe
from themselves as Miles vorKosigan.

William F. Hostman  |  "Smith & Wesson: THe original Point and Click
interface!"
Aramis 0602 C55A364-C S kk+ as+ hi+ dr+ va++(--) so+ zh++ vi+ da++ sy- ge-
533
Mailto:aramis@gci.net http://home.gci.net/~aramis http://www.alaska.net/~mhaa
ICQ:14640742          AIM:AKAramis	ARM 1.0: 3 R H++ P+
IMTU 1.0: tc tm++ tn- t4-- tt+ to- tg-- ru+ ge 3i+ c+ jt-() au+ st- ls
pi+() ta+ he+(-) kk+ as+ hi+ dr+ va++(--) so+ zh++ vi+ da++ sy- ge- pi+

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

Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 17:28:32 -0400 (EDT)
From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
Subject: [none]

>>IIRC the actual default setting is quite strong, studies on language
>universals done on creoles suggest that the basics settings are things like,
>Subject Verb Object is the way to lay out a sentence, single word negatives,
>etc.
>>
>A lot of the languages I've studied were Subject Object Verb, especially
>Japanese... which can be Topic Subject Object Verb...

Likewise, russian has no truly "Proper" sentence ordering except that
depdendant clauses follow the main clause. It is not uncommon in literature
(altho in speach it tends to be Suj Verb Object) to find any combination of
SVO, SOV, OSV OVS, VOS, OSO, etc. used to slow the reader down or to make
rhymes. Since word declesion usually sets subject and object apart (russian
declension affects almost everything in the sentence).

William F. Hostman  |  "Smith & Wesson: THe original Point and Click
interface!"
Aramis 0602 C55A364-C S kk+ as+ hi+ dr+ va++(--) so+ zh++ vi+ da++ sy- ge-
533
Mailto:aramis@gci.net http://home.gci.net/~aramis http://www.alaska.net/~mhaa
ICQ:14640742          AIM:AKAramis	ARM 1.0: 3 R H++ P+
IMTU 1.0: tc tm++ tn- t4-- tt+ to- tg-- ru+ ge 3i+ c+ jt-() au+ st- ls
pi+() ta+ he+(-) kk+ as+ hi+ dr+ va++(--) so+ zh++ vi+ da++ sy- ge- pi+

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

Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 14:12:25 -0700
From: "Legate Legion" <legate@futureone.com>
Subject: Re: Shirt Pictures

From: Jesse DeGraff <fenris@slip.net>
Subject: RE: Shirt Pictures


>Let's not start that again.  Touchy subject.  Please drop older Ditzie.
>
>Sincerely,
>Jesse


    What & have her use him as a test subject?  Are you nuts?  No one drops
the older Ditzie, she drops them, & you are damn happy about it, when it
happens.

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

"A man may fight for many things; his country, his principles, his friends,
the glistening tear on the cheek of a golden child. But personally, I'd
mudwrestle my own mother for a ton of cash, an amusing clock, and a stack of
French porn." - Edmund Blackadder

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

Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 14:31:51 -0700
From: Keith Johnson <kejohnson@2xtreme.net>
Subject: Will the real Strephon please stand up! (Re: Cloning)

At 11:54 PM 8/21/99 -0400, you wrote:
>
>> The Strephon who appears after the assassination was in fact a clone.
>> In is explicitly mentioned in _Survival Margin_, where IIRC (all my
>> Trav books are still boxed up after moving) he laments his clones fate
>> in his private dairy.
>
>Um, not *quite*, Rupert.  The Strephon that Dulinor whacked was the clone.  
>The guy writing the diary in SM was the *real* Strephon.

That was my understanding as well.

However, I just picked up Hard Times and read that Strephon refused to be
tested by IRIS to confirm if he really was the Emperor.  After he refused,
IRIS publicly stated that "Strephon" wasn't a contender and backed Margaret
as the highest ranking noble eligible for the Iridium Throne.  Despite the
fact that IRIS holds no significant power during the Rebellion, it has to
be PR that is extremely damaging to Strephon's cause.

If he was the real Strephon, why the heck didn't he go along with the test?
 Was this written up anywhere else?





_____________________________________________________________
Rev. Keith Johnson      /\     keith@sjgames.com
Assistant Webmaster    /()\    kejohnson@2xtreme.net
Steve Jackson Games   /____\   reverendkeith@hotmail.com
             http://www.sjgames.com/
  IMTU tm+ t4+@ tg++$ ru- ge-@ st+ pi+ he+ dr+ hi-@ zh+
"I don't practice what I preach, because I'm not the kind
of person I'm preaching to." - J.R. "Bob" Dobbs in Newsweek
_____________________________________________________________ 

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

Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 14:38:16 -0700
From: Keith Johnson <kejohnson@2xtreme.net>
Subject: Hard Times

Speaking of Hard Times... eight or nine years after it was released, I
finally picked it up.

I was curious how many Trav players use it, and what the rest of the TML
peanut gallery thought of it.  Good?  Bad?  Stupid?  Excellent for storing
in your fireplace?

Just curious...


_____________________________________________________________
Rev. Keith Johnson      /\     keith@sjgames.com
Assistant Webmaster    /()\    kejohnson@2xtreme.net
Steve Jackson Games   /____\   reverendkeith@hotmail.com
             http://www.sjgames.com/
  IMTU tm+ t4+@ tg++$ ru- ge-@ st+ pi+ he+ dr+ hi-@ zh+
"I don't practice what I preach, because I'm not the kind
of person I'm preaching to." - J.R. "Bob" Dobbs in Newsweek
_____________________________________________________________ 

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

Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 17:31:28 -0400
From: Michael Peters <travelleri@home.com>
Subject: slightly OT: Looking to locate...

Gang,

I'm looking for a couple of items of information. First I'd like to find
out if Guy Garnett is still ghosting the list or if anyone has a current
email address for him.

The second item I'd like some information on is a group calling itself
the Aoreriyya Project. I have no names for any of the members.

Now the reason... I recently received a copy of the boxed edition of
Brilliant Lances thru an ebay auction. As a bonus there was a typed
manuscript tittled "Gralyn: One Small Jump:. The manuscript is the
"playtest edition" of the players section for what looks to be a
complete source book for a pocket empire adventure in TNE!

Now I admit that my knowledge of TNE is shakey but I haven't seen any
references to this manuscript ever having seen print. I'd really like to
contact the authors!

IF any of this is familiar to anyone please contact me off list at the
email address below. Thanks in advance.

Mike

- -- 
Mike Peters
travelleri@home.com

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

Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 14:40:18 -0700
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@pharmacy.arizona.edu>
Subject: Re: Re Slings

William F. Hostman wrote:
> 
> >William F. Hostman wrote:
> >>
> >> A staff sling is essentially a hand sling on a 2m pole... and is not
> >> twirled, but used exactly like an atlatl, only much easier to do
> >> successfully.
> >
> >Actually, it sounds more like a human powered trebuchet...
> >
> Trebuchets keep a cup fixed to the end of the arm, and the cup remains open.

My mistake. My info comes from watching the a documentary about mad
englishman whouses the one he's built to fling used automobiles about 
his property. On that one, the car is attaches to a sling that works
just as you've described. (fortunately! one of the launches he did for
the camera crew involved a lit 5 gallon can of gasoline ;-)

Yes, his wife thinks hes certifiable, and really wishes her husband
would find a safer hobby. Him, well, he just wants to build a _bigger_
one ;-)

- -- 
Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

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

Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 14:45:34 -0700
From: Keith Johnson <kejohnson@2xtreme.net>
Subject: Trav T-shirts

At 10:50 PM 8/22/99 -0400, you wrote:
>
>    Yes, I have a couple I would like to see as a shirt, well more than a
>few, really.

>http://www.vision-forge-graphics.com/jesse/traveller/ft_orbit_2.htm
>
>http://www.vision-forge-graphics.com/jesse/traveller/tml_sulieman1.htm


My vote is for one of these two.


_____________________________________________________________
Rev. Keith Johnson      /\     keith@sjgames.com
Assistant Webmaster    /()\    kejohnson@2xtreme.net
Steve Jackson Games   /____\   reverendkeith@hotmail.com
             http://www.sjgames.com/
  IMTU tm+ t4+@ tg++$ ru- ge-@ st+ pi+ he+ dr+ hi-@ zh+
"I don't practice what I preach, because I'm not the kind
of person I'm preaching to." - J.R. "Bob" Dobbs in Newsweek
_____________________________________________________________ 

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

Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 17:48:12 -0400
From: Juliean Galak <jg42@cornell.edu>
Subject: Re: Low ship weight

At 11:44 AM 8/23/99 -0400, you wrote:
> >On the question of carrying vehicles as cargo, this is one of the few good
> >results of the detailed GURPS Vehicles design system*; it produces a volume
> >figure as well as a mass figure.  Vehicles are treated as
> >"Roll-on/Roll-off" cargo, which takes up twice its actual volume in cargo
> >space.
> >
> >* otherwise, Vehicles takes for too much work for the results, and takes up
> >way too much space in the source books.  IMHO, of course.
> >
> >Tom Schoene
>
>Oddly enough, I finally began to figure out GURPS Vehicles this summer.
>Amazing what 10 hours at the beach with a book and palmtop can do! GURPS
>Vehicles don't seem that complicated if all the calculations are done
>automatically.
>
>Anyway, I've decided to write GT Infini-V: a GURPS version of Infini-V,
>initially aimed at GURPS Traveller but with enough hooks to include other
>technologies. This is more complicated than Infini-V, and my work schedule
>this semester kinda sucks, so I may not get finished until Christmas. OTOH,
>I may well have usable results by Friday, too, if I don't hit any snags.
>
>As usual, BITS will have a free downloadable demo available once the
>software is ready.

You are talking a GURPS Vehicle creation system, right?  Please, please, 
please, make a Windows version!!!  I'd even pay money for it... :)

           -- Juliean Galak (a.k.a. Falcon)

- --
jg42@cornell.edu        "I do not agree with a word you say, but I will
                          defend to the death your right to say it."
                                              -- Francois Marie Voltaire
#include <disclaimer.h> "Imagination is more important than knowledge"
                          			     -- Albert Einstein
for PGP public-key and
more quotes, finger: jg42@gerfalcon.tzo.com
WWW Page: http://www.cadif.cornell.edu/~falcon/                

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

Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 16:54:24 -0500 (CDT)
From: jmaclean@ix.netcom.com
Subject: Re: Thrust effects (was HEPlar lives!)

On 08/23/99 14:05:23 you wrote:
>
>Edward Swatschek writes:
>
>> This depends on the game system being used.  In TNE/FF&S, contragravity 
>> simply reduced the gravitational vector over a specific volume by 99%.  In 
>> an atmosphere, this might make the ship neutrally or positively buoyant, 
>> but no thrust is involved - that would be provided by HEPlaR or some other 
>> engine.
> 
>Um...wrong ;)  It provided 10-20% of gravitational force sideways in TNE/FF&S.  In Striker it 
could provide any amount of sideways force.  I don't know about T4 or MT.
>

You're thinking of FF&S2 (a T4 product).  In FF&S1 it cancels over 99% of weight but 
thrust agencies of some sort still have to be applied to move anywhere.

From the RCEG under the description of the grav belt:

"...contra-grav technology is not a thrust generator, but rather creates
a field within which gravity vectors are 99% negated..."

and from FF&S1 itself, pg.25:

"Grav and air cushion vehicles also require thrust, as their suspensions 
serve only to hold them up, not move them forward."


- ------------------
Jim MacLean
Economist, Traveller Fan
Co-Author GT: Far Trader

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

Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 14:57:21 -0700
From: Keith Johnson <kejohnson@2xtreme.net>
Subject: Re: Bureaucrats (was re: Puzzling Sig)

At 12:05 PM 8/23/99 -0400, you wrote:
>
>Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 08:54:20 PST
>From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
>Subject: Re: Bureaucrats (was re: Puzzling Sig)
>
>>>"Wow, that's a pretty primitive writing tool, I've never seen one before.
>>>Can I borrow one of yours to fill out these forms?"
>>>...bureaucrat hands over a "Request to borrow writing implement form".
>>>"Ummm, what do I use to fill *this* out?"
>>>"Ball-point pen. All official forms must be filled out in ball-point pen."
>>>...pan camera to smoke wafting gently out the PC's ears....
>
>I'd be tempted to whisper something into my com-link and then stand
>there patiently until someone from the ship arrived. At which point I'd
>take the bundle they were carrying, flip thru it, and hand the
>bureaucrat some choice forms. Such as "request for permission for
>business related data", "request for permision for personal data" (such
>as name), "monetary reimbursement forms (with a rate for filling out
>paperwork), etc, etc. 


Ugh.  Having worked for the California State Government, I know exactly how
that would be handled.

"Thank you very much for the forms.  A state employee will take care of
this as soon as possible.  Please have a seat and we will get you the
completed forms as soon as possible."

Then the form would be placed in a large pile of papers and never be seen
or remembered again.


_____________________________________________________________
Rev. Keith Johnson      /\     keith@sjgames.com
Assistant Webmaster    /()\    kejohnson@2xtreme.net
Steve Jackson Games   /____\   reverendkeith@hotmail.com
             http://www.sjgames.com/
  IMTU tm+ t4+@ tg++$ ru- ge-@ st+ pi+ he+ dr+ hi-@ zh+
"I don't practice what I preach, because I'm not the kind
of person I'm preaching to." - J.R. "Bob" Dobbs in Newsweek
_____________________________________________________________ 

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

Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 18:00:32 -0400
From: Juliean Galak <jg42@cornell.edu>
Subject: Re: Re Slings

At 05:28 PM 8/23/99 -0400, you wrote:
> >William F. Hostman wrote:
> >>
> >> A staff sling is essentially a hand sling on a 2m pole... and is not
> >> twirled, but used exactly like an atlatl, only much easier to do
> >> successfully.
> >
> >Actually, it sounds more like a human powered trebuchet...
> >
>Trebuchets keep a cup fixed to the end of the arm, and the cup remains open.

Actually, many Trebuchets used precisely a staff-sling arrangement of a 
soft sling attached at both ends to the arm.  One end was fixed to the arm 
while the other one was rigged to release at the top of the arm's swing.

However, a staff-sling isn't really a human-powered trebuchet, since by 
definition, a trebuchet uses a counterweight as an energy source.  (I think 
the word trebuchet actually has something to do it in some language.  My 
reference books are all in boxes right now...).

For a decent discussion of Trebuchets you can look in Payne-Galloway's "The 
Crossbow Book."  It's a decent introductory work mostly on crossbows, but 
it does discuss siege weapons in the back.

           -- Juliean Galak (a.k.a. Falcon)

- --
jg42@cornell.edu        "I do not agree with a word you say, but I will
                          defend to the death your right to say it."
                                              -- Francois Marie Voltaire
#include <disclaimer.h> "Imagination is more important than knowledge"
                          			     -- Albert Einstein
for PGP public-key and
more quotes, finger: jg42@gerfalcon.tzo.com
WWW Page: http://www.cadif.cornell.edu/~falcon/                

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

Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 14:43:05 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Hudson-class Lander (GTL9)

In mail you write:

> Hm, would different yield bombs make a different 'note' when they go off?
>
> If so, then by carefully sequencing and timing the thrust of your drive you
> could play music.

I don't think that'd be practical. But since you are generating steam
with the waste heat *anyway, you could add a multi *gigawatt* steam
calliope to the ship. 

High notes shatter *steel* miles away. Low notes induce earthquakes a
continent away. :-)

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

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

Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 14:45:25 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Slings and Outrageous Fortunes of War

In mail you write:

> William F. Hostman wrote:
>>
>> A staff sling is essentially a hand sling on a 2m pole... and is not
>> twirled, but used exactly like an atlatl, only much easier to do
>> successfully.
>
> Actually, it sounds more like a human powered trebuchet...

Not quite. 

Human powered trebuchets (aka "traction trebuchets") did exist. Instead
of a counterweight you had a *whole bunch* of people pulling in unision
on a set of ropes. 

The local SCA group has a three man traction trebuchet they use in SCA
"wars". It'll lob whole *baskets of "fuzzy green death" (tennis balls
substituting for small rocks) quite a ways. 

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

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

Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 14:51:08 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Thrust effects (was HEPlar lives!)

In mail you write:

> Tom writes:
>
>> > *cough*.  If you really want people toasting small cities with their 
>> > engines, go for it.  HEPlaR has a power output of roughly 15 megawatts
>> > per  newton of thrust -- your average free trader, at something like 20
>> > million  newtons thrust, generates the equiva
>> > lent of a 50 kiloton nuclear weapon every second...
>> 
>> Just curious, but isn't this why most downports have landing pads separated
>>  from living quarters?  Some of them with high earthwork walls? ...or am I
>>  missing the point?
>
> Yah, you're missing the point.  You have the equivalent of a strategic 
> nuclear weapon going off every time a ship lands or takes off, this will 
> destroy the landing field in a single landing (in fact, it will also tend to 
> destroy the ship) and destroy the 
> entire port in short order.

Check out the "yeild" of a Saturn V or the Space Shuttle. 

You *can* handle that sort of thing. It just takes "a little
engineering". After all, if an Orion drive is possible, so are
facilties that can survive a HEPlaR landing and takeoff. You just need
*lots* of water for the "deluge" spray on the exhaust deflectors. 

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

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

Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 18:09:17 -0400 (EDT)
From: Charles Collin <charles@hebb.psych.mcgill.ca>
Subject: Grav Pong

Hi all.

Someone mentioned that playing Grav Pong with boarders would damage one's
own ship by throwing around the cargo, furniture and ship's vehicles. 
This is only the case if one assumes that small individual grav plates
can't be manipulated.  I would rule that the plate at the end of the hall
on a scout/courier could be turned up or down without affecting the
staterooms to either side.  Certainly the air/raft bay would be fine.  So
you could pong intruders up and down the hall while your crewmates stayed
comfy in their rooms.  The lounge furniture might get wrecked, though...
:-)

IMTU, you have to disable the plant to board effectively (just to wave
cannon around indiscriminately, that's mentioned in HG). Boarding actions
are usually in the dark (or by emergency lighting, flare light or some
such).  I agree with a previous poster that a grav belt should be able to
keep you in place.  You just need to hook it to an inertial compass and
program an autopilot to only allow movement you input.  I still think you
could be made quite nauseous/ineffective in such a situation though, with
several g pulling you in various directions, up and down changing second
by second...yuck!  Much better to zap the plant (if you can get close
enough to board, you're close enough to blow up the plant!).

Charles C.

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

Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 15:01:44 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Low ship weight (and Grav Plates too)

In mail you write:

>> On a vaguely related thread, suppose you drop a huge cargo container
>> onto you deck plate from a height of a few metres.  How much damage
>> would it do?  Would it screw up the grav plate?  (I ask purely from
>> interest of course, my character would never actually have done such
>> a thing to her ship...)

> Well, taking current ships and aircraft as a basis, that's would utterly
> knacker your floor, probably requiring expensive repairs and maybe even
> making a hole. A couple of metres is a long way to fall under 1g. The grav
> plate? Well, I'd say that's pretty much up to the GM.

Real world data point. 

Some years back, I was working graveyard shift at a plant not far fron
one of the cargo terminals on the waterfront. Due to the wayt bus
schedules worked out, I caught a bus from home to a place about a mile
from the plant, and had dinner (breakfast) at a burger joint while
waiting for the bus I'd transfer too. 

One night, I was sitting there eating my burger when there was this
*enourmous* crash. A semi had stopped at the light and had a slight
"accident" when starting back up. 

Instead of a regular trailer, he had a "long" cargo container. These
are often fitted so you can "snap on" a set of wheels at the rear and
the "mounting" hardware for the fifth wheel at the front.

This one had been set up that way, but something had gone wrong. The
rear wheels had come loose (I think the brakes must have stayed locked
when he started up again, because they wound up sitting in the street
*upside down*). 

So the rear of the container had fallen about a meter and a half (while
the front half remained supported). It gouged the pavement some. It
also *bent* so abnout the last third was flat on the pavement, with the
rest angling up to the fifth wheel. 

So dropping a container from a couple of meters may or may not damage
the deck. But it'll *definitely* mangle the container.

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

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

Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 22:29:35 GMT
From: jzeitlin@cyburban.com (Jeff Zeitlin)
Subject: Re: Aslan Language

On Mon, 23 Aug 1999 07:50:29 -0400 (EDT), "Antony Farrell"
<Skaran@bigpond.com> wrote:

>Does anyone know if their is a more complete lexicon of the Aslan languages
>(and a source of fonts) than that which appeared in Solomani and Aslan.

None that I'm aware of... You're welcome to join the
Traveller-Culture list and get some work on this going...

- --
Jeff Zeitlin
jzeitlin@cyburban.com

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

Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 18:23:33 -0400
From: "Thomas Schoene" <TomSchoene@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: Low ship weight

- ----------
> From: Robert Prior <robert_prior@sympatico.ca>
> To: traveller@lists.imagiconline.com
> Subject: Re: Low ship weight
> Date: Monday, 23 August, 1999 11:44 AM
> 
> >* otherwise, Vehicles takes for too much work for the results, and takes
up
> >way too much space in the source books.  IMHO, of course.
> >
> 
> Oddly enough, I finally began to figure out GURPS Vehicles this summer.
> Amazing what 10 hours at the beach with a book and palmtop can do! GURPS
> Vehicles don't seem that complicated if all the calculations are done
> automatically.

Well, I'm a tad slower than that.  it took me a full weekend to properly
spreadsheet just the gun design system.  That's too much work for a
non-gearhead, liberal-arts major like myself.  The GT starship design
system is about my speed.

I regard the space issue as a bigger problem.  I don't need all the design
nuts and bolts spelled out in the final text of a non-Vehicles supplement. 
I'd be perfectly happy with short descriptions that include key 
performance data, electronics and other key systems, and armor/hit point
values.  I don't need the nitty gritty on how it was designed to use it in
a game.    

Perhaps future GT books can use the compact format being worked up for the
Vehicle Companion.  Based on the current books, this could free three or
four pages for, IMO, higher-value content.

That's just one man's opinion.


> Anyway, I've decided to write GT Infini-V: a GURPS version of Infini-V,
> initially aimed at GURPS Traveller but with enough hooks to include other
> technologies. This is more 
[snip]
> As usual, BITS will have a free downloadable demo available once the
> software is ready.

This is very good to hear.  Did you have any luck scaring up a PC for
Windows development work?  Or will I have to set it up on one of the old
Macs at work?

Regards
Tom Schoene

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

Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 18:25:26 -0400
From: Ian Ferguson <ian@vax2.concordia.ca>
Subject: Re: RE Squad Leader

Nick Bradbeer writes:
>> Thus, if a squad can keep a LOS on a target, that target
>> could be hit almost all the time at TL 9 (roll 11- on 2D?).
>
>35 hits out of 36 with laser-guided munitions?
>
>Are you American, by any chance? <g>

	:-) Nope, Canadian.  Note that I did specify TL 9 (perhaps
	I should also specify CT TL 9).

Peez

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

Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 15:29:26 -0700 (PDT)
From: Anthony Jackson <ajackson@molly.iii.com>
Subject: Re: Thrust effects (was HEPlar lives!)

Leonard Erickson writes:

> Check out the "yeild" of a Saturn V or the Space Shuttle. 

Saturn V: 30 million newtons of thrust at 2800 meters/second = 20 tons/second.
Free Trader: 10 million newtons of thrust at 20,000 kilometers/second = 50 kt/second.

That's 2,500 times more dangerous....
> 
> You *can* handle that sort of thing. It just takes "a little
> engineering". After all, if an Orion drive is possible, so are
> facilties that can survive a HEPlaR landing and takeoff. You just need
> *lots* of water for the "deluge" spray on the exhaust deflectors. 

An orion drive that handles more than .001 Gs may well not be possible....

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

Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 17:49:24 -0500
From: "shadowcat" <meow@advancenet.net>
Subject: Re: Hudson-class Lander (GTL9)

Nah... I can think of some much more twisted ideas for the theme 
music.

So Long Mom by Tom Lehrer would work well for the liftoff

theres a filksong called "Rocket Riders Prayer" that also comes
to mind for the liftoff of the early ships especially.
 
The Anvil Chorus could be fun for the strafing runs.
Purple Haze for when chemical weapons get used.
1812 Overature could work for cannon and rocket/MRL
attacks

Shadowcat AKA Kevin Walsh
Captain of the Free Trader Beowulf
ADD/ADHD Advocate
http://www.advancenet.net/~meow

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

End of Traveller-digest V1999 #1000
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