Traveller-digest     Thursday, August 26 1999     Volume 1999 : Number 1020



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

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Thrust effects (was HEPlar lives!)
Re: 101 Starships
Re: 101 Starships
Re: 101 Starships
Re: 101 Starships
Re: 101 Starships
OT Book Help!
Re: Ethically challenged merchants
Re: GT Armor - Cheaper Merchants, Faster Combat Craft
Re: Atlantis class redesign
Re: Thrust effects (was HEPlar lives!)
re:Streamlining
Re: Thrust effects (was HEPlar lives!)
re: Thrust Effects
Re: X-TEK vs. X-tech Maximus
Re: GT Weapons Question
Re: Thrust Effects
Re: Thrust Effects
Re: Thrust effects (was HEPlar lives!)
RE: Streamlining
Re: GT Armor - Cheaper Merchants, Faster Combat Craft
Re: GT Weapons Question
Was someone looking for The Company War?
Alien Races 2 Question

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

Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 11:44:45 -0700
From: "David P. Summers" <summers@alum.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: Thrust effects (was HEPlar lives!)

>And the only time vectored thrust is "needed" is for landing these
>silly ships with decks parallel to the thrust axis

I allows you to trust bring a weapon to bear (or protecting damaged areas
of a ship, keeping sensors pointed in a certain direction, etc.) while
still thrusting in another direction.  Also, being able to change course on
the time scale of a few seconds is useful since that is the
timescale between targetting info and return fire.  Loosing
even half a second can make a difference.
______________________________
summers@alum.mit.edu
(This is the net.  My e-mail address may be in Boston, but I'm in California.)

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

Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 09:57:08 +0100
From: John Buston <JohnBuston@tesco.net>
Subject: Re: 101 Starships

>> The Sharlin class Merchant Tender

The concept specified is very similar to the LASH tender design in Far Trader
(i.e. can carry many 800 DT lighters, or SDBs).

>What would be the economic benefit from building such a ship?

The authors of Far Trader thought it was an economic design, and that should be
good enough for most! The operational logistics described in FT certainly make
sense. 

We had a discussion on this and other aspects of FT a while back, which resolved
to this being a very economic design. The only minor dispute was over whether
the carried craft should be streamlined or unstreamlined. USL made more sense
purely from the figures, SL may be required logistically.

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

Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 09:57:08 +0100
From: John Buston <John.Buston@tesco.net>
Subject: Re: 101 Starships

>> The Sharlin class Merchant Tender

The concept specified is very similar to the LASH tender design in Far Trader
(i.e. can carry many 800 DT lighters, or SDBs).

>What would be the economic benefit from building such a ship?

The authors of Far Trader thought it was an economic design, and that should be
good enough for most! The operational logistics described in FT certainly make
sense. 

We had a discussion on this and other aspects of FT a while back, which resolved
to this being a very economic design. The only minor dispute was over whether
the carried craft should be streamlined or unstreamlined. USL made more XX-Mozilla-Status: 0009figures, SL may be required logistically.

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

Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 09:57:08 +0100
From: John Buston <John.Buston@tesco.net>
Subject: Re: 101 Starships

>> The Sharlin class Merchant Tender

The concept specified is very similar to the LASH tender design in Far Trader
(i.e. can carry many 800 DT lighters, or SDBs).

>What would be the economic benefit from building such a ship?

The authors of Far Trader thought it was an economic design, and that should be
good enough for most! The operational logistics described in FT certainly make
sense. 

We had a discussion on this and other aspects of FT a while back, which resolved
to this being a very economic design. The only minor dispute was over whether
the carried craft should be streamlined or unstreamlined. USL made more XX-Mozilla-Status: 0009figures, SL may be required logistically.

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

Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 09:57:08 +0100
From: John Buston <John.Buston@tesco.net>
Subject: Re: 101 Starships

>> The Sharlin class Merchant Tender

The concept specified is very similar to the LASH tender design in Far Trader
(i.e. can carry many 800 DT lighters, or SDBs).

>What would be the economic benefit from building such a ship?

The authors of Far Trader thought it was an economic design, and that should be
good enough for most! The operational logistics described in FT certainly make
sense. 

We had a discussion on this and other aspects of FT a while back, which resolved
to this being a very economic design. The only minor dispute was over whether
the carried craft should be streamlined or unstreamlined. USL made more XX-Mozilla-Status: 0009figures, SL may be required logistically.

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

Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 09:57:08 +0100
From: John Buston <John.Buston@tesco.net>
Subject: Re: 101 Starships

>> The Sharlin class Merchant Tender

The concept specified is very similar to the LASH tender design in Far Trader
(i.e. can carry many 800 DT lighters, or SDBs).

>What would be the economic benefit from building such a ship?

The authors of Far Trader thought it was an economic design, and that should be
good enough for most! The operational logistics described in FT certainly make
sense. 

We had a discussion on this and other aspects of FT a while back, which resolved
to this being a very economic design. The only minor dispute was over whether
the carried craft should be streamlined or unstreamlined. USL made more XX-Mozilla-Status: 0009figures, SL may be required logistically.

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

Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 15:22:50 -0400
From: Kurt Feltenberger <kurt@blazenet.net>
Subject: OT Book Help!

Hi guys!

I need a bit of help tracking down a book I had, but lost.  It dealt with a 
group of people, both military and civilian historians, going from the 
present day back in time to December of 1941.  The current president is 
suffering from cancer and is in critical condition when an archivist 
discovers some log books that show that an American researcher in the 
Philippines seems to have discovered the cure for cancer.  Two small 
problems...the rest of the notes are lost and the researcher himself 
disappeared during the Japanese invasion of the islands.  The heros use a 
modified 737 to travel back in time.

Alas, I've lost the book, forgot the title and author, and am considering 
basing a scenario off of it in the future.

Considering how well read this list is, I was wondering if someone has read 
this and can lend a hand with the title.

Thanks!

Kurt Feltenberger

"To our Country! In her intercourse with foreign nations,
    may she always be in the right, but our country, right or wrong!"
      ~Stephen Decatur


mailto:kurt@blazenet.net

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

Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 15:44:22 -0400
From: "Terry Carlino" <carlino@home.com>
Subject: Re: Ethically challenged merchants

I don't see piracy as a typical career choice, but rather the result of a
slippery slope, just as often happened during the age of sail. People didn't
start out to be pirates. They ended up that way, because they had no choice.

> One of the problems I have with "opportunity piracy" is that IMO using a
>multi-million starship to catch another is very much akin to wearing a
>highly identifiable uniform when robbing a convenience store. A 'uniform'
>moreover that's worth considerably more than what you can expect to gain
>from the crime.

That's fine if you own the ship, but what about the person whose ship is
owned by the bank, and has no money to pay.  What do you do after you skip.
For awhile you might be able to engage in commerce, as long as you stay
ahead of the skip chasers. What then?  Leave Imperial space? Is that really
likely to stop a good skip chaser? The Zhodani won't welcome a thief.  Vargr
space just means you'll be fighting off other pirates.  Doing business in
Aslan space requires contacts.  There's a few places that will buy cargoes
no questions asked. So you go into the life.
Then there's the traditional way. You're crew on a trader or Megacorp ship
with a real bad set of slavedriver officers, or perhaps the Megacorp is not
exactly the most employee friendly group. You and your shipmates decide you
have had enough. Mutiny! Now what? You put in at any standard starport and
there will be questions. You have the skills to run a ship for a long time,
if you can pay for the maintenance or get the spare parts. A captured ship
every now and again might let you scrape some kind of living on the low TL
worlds. As long as you can stay out of the way of the IN and the Colonial
SDB's.
You can add escaped criminals, losers in system wide warfare, and even
disenfranchised local despots and their troops.
Will they last long? Probably not. Most historical pirates ended up either
dead or in politics. (Several were granted pardon by the English Crown and
even appointed Governor of English holdings in the Caribbean.)

Terry C

All that is Gold does not glitter
Not all who travel are lost

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

Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 21:29:38 +0100
From: John Buston <John.Buston@tesco.net>
Subject: Re: GT Armor - Cheaper Merchants, Faster Combat Craft

>We had this debate over the battledress issue. I think there was a ruling
>somewhere in there about how much area could be covered by the advanced
>armours.

I didn't participate in that discussion. 
Looking back at the archives I see that someone made a handwave on this.
It doesn't hold water though. GT sidebar p155 discusses creating non-standard
hulls using the different armors available in G:Vehicles. In G:Vehicles there is
an example scout ship with composite armor. In G:Space it makes reference to
using different (unnamed) armor types as a mass/cost trade-off with no limit.

>Remember that we're trying to model CT here, not min-max GURPS Vehicles.

We?

I thought this was a forum for discussing all aspects of all versions of
traveller. I personally have no interest in the detailed mechanics of CT 
or maintaining its "purity". 

Are you saying that Gurps gearheads are not welcome on the list?

Anyone else want to move over to the Gurps traveller mailing list?

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

Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 20:02:18 +0100
From: John Buston <John.Buston@tesco.net>
Subject: Re: Atlantis class redesign

>>>the Atlantis is
>>>equiped with enough life pods to support the full crew (six pods
>>>support 24 people, enough for the crew and a squad of RATs).

>> Why so many?

>Taneian naval doctrine. Life pods are designed for long-term periods - thus
>the design is: 5 ton SL, Hardened Cockpit,  Maneuver,  4 Low Berths

4 low berths = 16 cryotubes, so you only need two lifepods

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

Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 16:52:05 -0400
From: Juliean Galak <jg42@cornell.edu>
Subject: Re: Thrust effects (was HEPlar lives!)

At 02:00 PM 8/25/99 -0500, you wrote:
>Part I:
>The main problem is not being torn apart by the winds (which are faster 
>than the 35 mph being bandied about here) aloft,  it's being torn apart by 
>the aerodynamic forces acting on the hull once tumbling begins.  Once 
>tumbling begins, the ship is subjected to air pressure based on its speed 
>relative to the air around it.
Right.  The question is, can the tumble be prevented...


>Part II:
>A lot less force is required to rotate an object around its center of mass 
>than it does to start the object moving in a straight line (hint:  you are 
>not accellerating the entire mass equally, the center is hardly being 
>accellerated at all).  Anybody feel up to calculating torques and moments 
>of revolution?
Just did that... Got a (IMHO) really strange result... I'd really like 
someone to double check my figures... I'll do it over once I get unpacked 
more and get my ref books out...


>Part III:
>It appears from all of the calculations being thrown about that landing a 
>ship under power in an atmosphere is possible if it descends slowly enough 
>and the winds aloft co-operate.  This would not be a casual affair 
>attempted everyday, but it would be possible, if risky.

Dunno, it depends on just how powerful the maneuvering thrusters are...  If 
they are on the order of .1G or higher, than this would seem to be an easy, 
routine maneuver.  If they are on the order of .01G, then yes, it's a risky 
but doable feat.  At anything less than that, it's nigh-impossible.

           -- 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: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 16:58:01 -0400
From: Juliean Galak <jg42@cornell.edu>
Subject: re:Streamlining

At 04:34 PM 8/25/99 -0400, you wrote:
>A cargo shuttle built for interface work will probably be better at it
>than a jump ship that isn't, even if a kludgy way can be worked
>out to let an unstreamlined ship land.

While the special purpose shuttle is more efficient, what's really gonna 
kill you (IMHO) is the extra loading/unloading required, both in terms of 
money and equipment/manpower.  Remember, pre-Suez canal, it was considered 
more efficient to sail all the way around Africa then to unload the ship in 
Egypt, bring them across the narrow isthmus there and reload to another 
ship in the Red Sea.  It's almost always preferable to keep the cargo on 
the same vessel for as long as possible.


>And don't forget, a world with
>a class A or B (or even sometimes C) starport is probably supporting
>a sizeable offworld population already, asteroid miners and whatnot.
>They'll need these shuttlecraft even when no interstellar traders are
>around.
Except that those shuttlecraft are already busy doing their own thing.  The 
company would need additional shuttles to do their on- and off- 
loading.  Whether it's actually purchasing extra shuttles or renting space 
on them for the duration, that's still pretty expensive.



>Besides, space stations look so cool...

now that's a totally valid reason.

>Walt Smith


           -- 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: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 17:02:08 -0400
From: Juliean Galak <jg42@cornell.edu>
Subject: Re: Thrust effects (was HEPlar lives!)

At 09:45 PM 8/24/99 +0100, you wrote:

>As we all seem to agree, the problem indeed isn't the risk of being torn
>apart by the winds. The winds just start the tumbling process which, unless
>the craft is stable (we're assuming not being stable is part of what makes
>it USL)

All that matches my understanding


>or is actively stabilised by a system with sufficiently high thrust
>and low latency to compensate in real time (again, I'd assume this wouldn't
>normally be present on a USL ship although it *could* be installed in
>theory)

This is where I have the problem - It seems to me that the normal 
maneuvering capacity of the ship is more than enough to deal with these issues.




           -- 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: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 16:54:57 -0400
From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
Subject: re: Thrust Effects

Here's a thought:

What if a ship with a sufficiently strong hull passes through an atmosphere
at such a speed that windspeed due to crosswinds is inconsequential
compared to windspeed due to the craft's velocity relative to the
air it is passing through? Say the ship is travelling so fast that
the air it passes through is, comparatively speaking, at rest?

Granted, the ship would have to do a hard braking of some sort
at the end of the flight...perhaps this is a crash landing procedure. ;-)

Walt Smith

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

Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 16:39:55 -0400
From: Mark Urbin <eclipse@ultranet.com>
Subject: Re: X-TEK vs. X-tech Maximus

William Prankard <cmdrx@magicnet.net> types out:
 >The two companies decided to join together to combat FS 'Ditziemania'.
 >With their own ad campaign using scantily clad females weilding weapons of
 >mass destruction.  (Hey it worked for beer commericals.<G>)

Don't laugh.  I remember the old military manuals from when I was a kid 
(Dad was in the  Corps of Engineers) that had illustrations of attractive 
young females in a 'reduced uniform' pointing out the technical aspects of 
the manual.

This was of course, in the old, non-PC days of the military, back when the 
O clubs had go-go dancers.

FASA spoofed this for some BTech manuals.

- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
eclipse@ultranet.com -- These opinions are mine, no one else wants `em.
Our users will know fear and cower before our software. Ship it! Ship it
and let them flee like the dogs they are! -- http://www.ultranet.com/~eclipse/
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 17:11:28 -0400
From: Juliean Galak <jg42@cornell.edu>
Subject: Re: GT Weapons Question

At 05:03 PM 8/25/99 -0400, you wrote:
>Bruce Johnson <johnson@pharmacy.arizona.edu> wrote:
>Ah-ha! All praise AltaVista... from
>http://www.sp.se/pne/ElectricalMetrology/ElMeteng/dccurrent.htm :
>
>The ampere is that constant current which, when maintained in two parallel
>infinitely long rectilinear conductors of negligible circular section placed
>at a distance of 1 metre apart in vacuum, produces between these conductors a
>force of 2x10-7 newton per metre length.
>
>Everything comes back to meters, seconds and kilograms, eventually.

Not necessarily.  I can just as easily define an Ampere to be:

The ampere is that constant current which, when maintained in two parallel 
infinitely long rectilinear conductors of negligible circular section 
placed at a distance of 3.28 feet apart in vacuum, produces between these 
conductors a force of 1.4*10^-8 pounds per foot length.

(I may have gotten the values off a bit...)

Some units are clearly metric, as they are defined in terms of exact metric 
values.  However many units are just re-calculated to metric 
quantities.  For example, a Newton is a metric unit, as it's exactly on 
Kilogram-meter per second squared.  Other units, especially any that take a 
weird constant to calculate, are just units.  They can be expressed in 
metric or in customary.

           -- 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: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 14:13:46 -0700 (PDT)
From: Anthony Jackson <ajackson@molly.iii.com>
Subject: Re: Thrust Effects

Walter Smith writes:

> What if a ship with a sufficiently strong hull passes through an atmosphere
> at such a speed that windspeed due to crosswinds is inconsequential
> compared to windspeed due to the craft's velocity relative to the
> air it is passing through? Say the ship is travelling so fast that
> the air it passes through is, comparatively speaking, at rest?

The ship may or may not decide to stabilize; it probably wouldn't stabilize going nose-first, though (it will tend to stabilize heavy-end first.  This probably means that the fuel tanks wind up in the back).  If its going more than (terminal velocity)*sqrt(Gs) the hull almost certainly isn't strong enough; in practice I suspect even a considerably lower velocity would cause many forms of hulls to break apart, and small objects to break off.
> 
> Granted, the ship would have to do a hard braking of some sort
> at the end of the flight...perhaps this is a crash landing procedure. ;-)

Almost any ship can manage a 'meteor' style landing, if you don't mind hitting the ground at several kilometers per second.

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

Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 14:13:46 -0700 (PDT)
From: Anthony Jackson <ajackson@molly.iii.com>
Subject: Re: Thrust Effects

Walter Smith writes:

> What if a ship with a sufficiently strong hull passes through an atmosphere
> at such a speed that windspeed due to crosswinds is inconsequential
> compared to windspeed due to the craft's velocity relative to the
> air it is passing through? Say the ship is travelling so fast that
> the air it passes through is, comparatively speaking, at rest?

The ship may or may not decide to stabilize; it probably wouldn't stabilize going nose-first, though (it will tend to stabilize heavy-end first.  This probably means that the fuel tanks wind up in the back).  If its going more than (terminal velocity)*sqrt(Gs) the hull almost certainly isn't strong enough; in practice I suspect even a considerably lower velocity would cause many forms of hulls to break apart, and small objects to break off.
> 
> Granted, the ship would have to do a hard braking of some sort
> at the end of the flight...perhaps this is a crash landing procedure. ;-)

Almost any ship can manage a 'meteor' style landing, if you don't mind hitting the ground at several kilometers per second.

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

Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 14:13:57 -0700 (PDT)
From: Anthony Jackson <ajackson@molly.iii.com>
Subject: Re: Thrust effects (was HEPlar lives!)

Juliean Galak writes:

> Right.  The question is, can the tumble be prevented...

At a minimum, it can be prevented with a cheap and fairly fast retrofit.  Take a superdense bar 10x the length of the ship.  Point it towards the ground, outside of your contragrav envelope.  Add a weight at the end -- should be at least 0.1% of the ship's mass, which shouldn't be too hard.

That will provide enough torque to keep any moderate size ship from flipping over, though it could probably wind up with a 45 degree tilt at times.

> Dunno, it depends on just how powerful the maneuvering thrusters are...  If
>  they are on the order of .1G or higher, than this would seem to be an
> easy,  routine maneuver.  If they are on the order of .01G, then yes, it's a
> risky  but doable feat.  At anything less than that, it's nigh-impossible.

Unfortunately, to allow _evasion_ (which High Guard allows, dunno about other rule systems) you need manuevering thrusters in the 1G range...otherwise you simply can't turn fast enough to be relevant while using lightspeed weapons.

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

Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 17:17:57 -0400
From: Juliean Galak <jg42@cornell.edu>
Subject: RE: Streamlining

At 05:44 PM 8/25/99 -0400, you wrote:
>Juliean Galak writes:
> >>         1) non-streamlined ships are unstable in atmosphere and
> >>            require specific software to fly
> >I'm still not convinced of that, although between Leonard's analysis of
> >wind force and my analysis of maneuvering thrusters, it seems more an
> >more likely...
>
>         I'm not totally convinced either, but at the very least it's
>         not much of a hand-wave.
True.


>         It depends on just how slow the ship has to move, and how deep
>         the atmosphere is.  And the weather issue remains.
Again, true.


>         What this does mean is that only dedicated ships on
>         established routes could make use of this option.  It
>         doesn't allow for much flexibility, and effectively
>         leaves out most PC's.
Yup.  But then in my experience most PC ship are at least PSL...  I'm 
looking more at background right now....


>         I'm assumimg that the highport is not built just for this
>         purpose.  Appart from the military considerations, where do
>         these unstreamlined ships get built?  It may even be cheap to
>         build streamlined ships in free-fall.  How are the
>         unstreamlined ships that don't fit the landing gantries in
>         the downport going to load/unload/refuel?   IMTU there are
>         also tugs which are used to push around all sorts of stuff
>         (wrecks, asteroids, cargo containers, etc.), and some of
>         these most definitely cannot enter the atmosphere with their
>         load: the highport is the only option.  On some planets there
>         may be other reasons to use the highport, such as insidious
>         atmospheres, high G, political considerations, etc.
I'm not saying no highports.  I'm just saying that a company that is able 
to land all it's freighters doesn't need to buy/rent a chunk of highport 
(presumably a high-price piece of real estate), or as much, anyway, it 
doesn't need as many shuttles, as much Vacc-Trained personnel, etc...

Presumably construction/maintenance still happens in orbit, but you don't 
need that in as many systems...


>         I'm with you there, and am just throwing out some ideas as
>         they gurggle up.  One possible approach is to rule that
>         unstreamlined ships do indeed land on well used routes in
>         certain parts of the galaxy.  Perhaps the Zhodani favour that
>         system while the Imperium does not.  Hmmm... that's
>         interesting...
that's one way to look at 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: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 17:14:12 -0400
From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
Subject: Re: GT Armor - Cheaper Merchants, Faster Combat Craft

John Buston wrote:
>>>>>>>>>
We?

I thought this was a forum for discussing all aspects of all versions of
traveller. I personally have no interest in the detailed mechanics of CT 
or maintaining its "purity". 

Are you saying that Gurps gearheads are not welcome on the list?

Anyone else want to move over to the Gurps traveller mailing list?
>>>>>>>>>>
Uh-oh, rules schizm ahead.

Think of it this way:

Let's say you are playing Gurps:Cliffhangers. Your GM might allow you
to  build a weird power using Gurps:Supers rules. That doesn't mean he
or you want to turn your campaign of mystery men and strong-jawed
archaeologists into a campaign of flying people in tights shooting 
energy blasts, whether you still play on 1930's Earth or not.

I would say that just as you wouldn't use Gurps:Supers to make (most)
Gurps:Cliffhangers characters, you wouldn't use every possible trick
in Gurps:Space, Gurps:UltraTech, and Gurps:Vehicles to make
Gurps:Traveller gear that is markedly different (i.e., more powerful)
than the starships, armor, weapons and vehicles that are part of
the standard Traveller setting. Such minimaxed equipment may be
fun to build, but it may also be as inappropriate in a (Gurps:)Travelller
scenario as Conan would be in a Three Musketeers scenario.

Just my .02Cr...

Walt Smith
Spearcarrier for the CT Revival
Currently vacationing ringmaster for the Traveller Deckplans Webring

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

Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 17:30:30 -0400
From: Juliean Galak <jg42@cornell.edu>
Subject: Re: GT Weapons Question

At 05:50 PM 8/25/99 -0700, you wrote:

>Just duplicate the above experiment ;).  Sort of like computing the length 
>of a meter by yourself by measuring the distance light travels in 
>1/299,792,458 of a second (last I knew, that's the standard meter).

I think it's currently defined as so many wavelengths of somne spectral 
line  emitted by some element...  Go and count them....

           -- 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: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 17:26:13 -0400
From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
Subject: Was someone looking for The Company War?

Was someone looking for Mayfair Games' _The Company War_, that
game based on CJ Cherrhy's(sp?) future history?

Aaron Leeder at ALeeder454@aol.com has a mint copy for $15.00,
I remember someone was looking for it on this list a few days ago.
He's got some other stuff as well, like Berserker and Forever War.

His web page is http://members.aol.com/aleeder454

Walt Smith

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

Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 22:37:39 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Alien Races 2 Question

Answer from Andy Slack on AR2 question:

>Envelope-to: dom@cybergoths.u-net.com
>From: "Andy Slack" <snakebite@halfwaystation.freeserve.co.uk>
>To: <howard.anderson@psu.edu>
>Cc: "SD Mooney" <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
>Subject: Alien Races 2 Question
>Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 20:56:54 +0100
>MIME-Version: 1.0
>X-Priority: 3
>X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
>X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.3110.3
>
>Hi guys -
>
>AFAIK, the 10 minute limitation isn't mentioned in any previous publication;
>I think I made it up. The intent was to tie into the meditation on matters
>of
>honour, which is mentioned in _Solomani & Aslan_, and also provide some
>concrete way in which Aslan psions were less capable than humans of
>equivalent Power.
>
>Andy
>
>>Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 21:59:03 -0400
>From: howard.anderson@psu.edu (Cheng Tseng)
>Subject: Alien Races 2 Question
>
>Hello,
>
>        I've been lurking for a long while, but after picking up my copy of
>Alien Races 2, I delurk to get some clarification on a point.
>        For the section on Aslans, there is a passage on Aslan characters
>with psionic ability.  My question is about  the use of psionics by an Aslan
>only after 10 minutes of meditiation, specifically, was this factoid
>mentioned in any earlier publications?  If so, which ones?
>
>Thanks in advance.
>
>C.T.<
>

- ----------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com------------
                       MiB - Marines in Battledress
   "Protecting the Imperium from the Scum of the Galaxy"
Rob Prior's Mac software @ http://www.bits.org.uk/ 

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

End of Traveller-digest V1999 #1020
***********************************

To unsubscribe to Traveller-Digest, send the command:

unsubscribe traveller-digest

in the body of a message to "traveller-request@lists.imagiconline.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
