Traveller-digest     Wednesday, October 6 1999     Volume 1999 : Number 1163



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

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Downport trouble...
Re: Downport trouble...
Re: Democracy and Traveller
Re: The Nth Traveller Flamewar
Re: Annic Nova
Re: Shiont(h)y Belt
XML for Traveller
Re: GT: Ship's Lasers Design
Re: BRS Class Emergency lifeboat - THUDDD 10 non-Entry
Re: BRS Class Emergency lifeboat - THUDDD 10 non-Entry
Re: Annic Nova 
Re Computers, Shannon's Law, the IISS
MT Damage
Re: The Nth Traveller Flamewar

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

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 11:35:19 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Downport trouble...

In mail you write:

> ObTrav: Since here, at least, network traffic grows faster than the
> pipes can be built, I wonmder what a mature TL-15 or 16 commnet looks
> like. Is everything wired together?

> Have they decided that they can really walk over and check the state
> of the coffee pot rather than hitting the Coffee-server and checking
> it's sensor readings, reducing network traffic? Is it safe to plant
> roses in your backyard before getting it blue staked? T4, in M0
> postulated ubitiquous low power wireless links, and computers
> everywhere.

> Presumably, given Shannon's law, and the fact that the 3i can make
> and handle X-ray lasers, is the hard limit of information transfer
> related to the frequency of these? Do they really want trillions of
> little X-Ray laser diodes all over the place? I'd imagine that one
> could be turned into a rather nasty little antipersonnel device in a
> pinch. What frequency _would they use? After all, x-rays cover a
> rather high range of frequencies.

Actually, mere *optical* fiber is adequate. We haven't gotten near the
Shannon limit on fiber yet. As I recall, it'll be well above the
terabit mark. And given multimode (multi-frequency) fiber and tunable
lasers, you can get multiple independent terabit links over the same
fiber. 

I expect that they'll have gone back to a "hierachical" model of sorts.
Your coffee pot may well be networked. But it will talk only on your
house/apartment net. It'll be possible to access it from outside *if*
you are allowed thru the firewall.

Likewise, there may be building level networks for office buildings and
apartment buildings. And so on up thru "neighborhood", city, region,
and planetary nets. 

At each level only traffic that *needs* to go betwwen nets reaches that
level of the network. And there'd be a lot of caching for info
resources and the like. So rather than hundreds or thousands of packets
carrying copies of that neat MP999 file from half a world away, the
regional net will notice that there's another request for the same
file, so it'll supply the second thru 9999th from the cached copy.
Ditto at the city, and maybe even neighborhood level. This requires
more storage, but less bandwidth. And I expect that storage will be
*more* than up to it.

In fact, I expect that "web pages" will likely get duplicated bewteen
cities/regions, rather than accessed directly. It saves *way* so much
bandwidth that it's the logical way to handle it. So web pages would be
"mirrored" all over the place.

Interplanetary traffic is going to be a lot more bandwidth limited.
*Far* lower data rates for two reasons. First, the available bandwidth
is far more sharply limited. On a planet, you can run multiple fibers
in parallel to get more bandwidth, and extra fibers via other routes
for redundancy & backup. Between planets, you can only run so much
traffic at any given frequency. 

Second, due to the speed of light, the latency of the transmission goes
*way* up. That is, the time between when a packet is sent, and when the
sending end gets an ACK/NAK (packet received ok/packet needs to be
resent) from the other end. We are talking *hours* here. 

So "priority" news & email will be sent via radio/laser between
planets, low priority news, mail, and "web content" will be sent via
storage media on ships (xboats). 

So inside star systems, we'll have a two tier sort of comm situation.
Local stuff is "instant". Interplanetary stuff is either hours old, or
*days* old when it arrives. And, of course, stuff from other star
systems is *always* "days old". 

But this is going to be a *very* sharp break. As an example, stuff from
Mars would reach Earth anywhere from 5 minutes after the fact to more
than half an hour (possibly much more, since when Mars is on the
opposite side of the sun, it'd have to relay thru a third planet).
Pluto is less than 6 hours away by radio. But anything coming via ship
will take more than a *week* (assuming an insystem jump) or months to
*years*. 

That's going to have an effect. 

> Or have they found a way around Shannon's law?

Unlikely. Shannon's law is more like "2+2=4" than "c is the speed limit".

> This pertains to the richness of the computing/comms network on a given
> Imperial world.

See above. As a rule, figure that the higher the bandwidth, the shorter
the distance you can use it at.

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

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

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 12:08:03 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Downport trouble...

In mail you write:

>> Presumably, given Shannon's law, and the fact that the 3i can make and 
>> handle X-ray lasers, is the hard limit of information transfer
>> related to the frequency of these?

> Yes and no. 2400 baud is the fastest speed you can drive a phone line
> at, but lots of people are using 56K modems to read this message.

Not the same thing. The bandwidth of the phone line is 300-3000 or
300-4000 Hz. Shannon's law with an appropriate signal to noise ration
gives pretty much the limiting bit rate we see (28,800 to 33,600). The
56k is only possible in one direction, and is actually vioilating the
bandwidth limit of the line.

> posted on data transfer between Xboat and tender a while back which
> went into frequency divisional multiplexing of lasers. As long as the
> frequencies don't interfere with each other, or you can distinguish
> the interference then you can get more bandwidth, add compression and
> away you go.

But I can still beat it by running the same setup over each fiber of a
multi-fiber cable. :-)

>> Or have they found a way around Shannon's law?
>
> Probably, but I don't know Shannon's law well enough to say that with
> any real conviction.

It's actually derived from *math*, not physics. 

        C= W log2( 1 + S/N )

        C = throughput in bit per second
        W = bandwidth in hertz
        S/N = signal to noise ratio


300-3000 = 2700 Hz. 300-4000 =3700 Hz

28800 = 2700 * log2(1+S/N)	33600 = 3700 * log2(1+S/N)
10.67 = log2(1+S/N)		9.08 = log2(1+S/N)
1625.5 = 1+S/N			541.6 = 1+S/N
1624.5 = S/N			540.6 = S/N

So it looks like we want an S/N ratio of around 1000.

Why we need such a high signal to noise ratio, I don't know. But we do.

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

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

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 13:03:49 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Democracy and Traveller

In mail you write:

> Terry Carlino writes:
> <snipped>
>>Athens was indeed the last "true" democracy, in that all 
>>citizens voted on each issue, vice voting for a representative 
>>to vote on issues.
>
>         True, in as far as most Athenians were not citizens.

Please note that there have been a number of democracies since Athens.
I seem to recall that at least one of the Italian city-states tried it
during the Renaisance. And, of course, we have Revolutuonary France. 

Also note that one of the major features of the Athenian democracy was
voting on who had offended/irritated enough people that he would be
exiled from the city. 

Other democracies had similar "tyranny of the majority" problems. And
the founding fathers of the US were quite *aware* of these
shortcomings. That's why they did their best to *keep* the US from
being a democracy. 

In a democracy, the majority is right. Period. In what we started with
(and still *mostly* have), there are things that not even a majority
vote is allowed to do. Though that is getting eroded as fast as
possible by politicians who care more about getting elected than about
consequences. 

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

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

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 13:11:34 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: The Nth Traveller Flamewar

In mail you write:

>>However my
>>bigest gripe is the Imperial mesurements used in the game (as a metric
>>user, how am I suppose to know that there are 2000lbs in a ton?!?!).

Look it up?

Weight:
16 ounces = 1 pound
2000 pounds = 1 ton

length
12 inches = 1 foot
3 feet = 1 yard
5280 feet = 1 mile

area
640 acres = 1 sq. mile

volume
8 fl. ounces = 1 pint
2 pints = 1 quart
4 quarts = gallon

also 231 cu. inches = 1 gallon

Those should get you thru 99% of the American measurements. 

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

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

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 13:17:27 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Annic Nova

In mail you write:

>>I wrote:
>>>My main problem with the ANNIC NOVA is the magic capacitors that allow a
>>>jump charge to be built up over several weeks.
>
> Antony Farrell replied:
>
>>I actually assumed that there were two sets of capacitors, one set for each
>>jump drive fitted (Annic Nova had two seperate jump drives) plus a set of
>>storage batteries which both stored power for normal ships use and charged
>>the jump drive capacitors allowing them to discharge in the normal way.
>  
>
> And Keven R. Pittsinger likewise:
>  
>>I remember it as more of a bank of batteries or equivilent, kind of like
>>Robert A. Heinlien's 'Shipstones'.
>
> That's not the point. If you remember the discussion about drop tanks and
> jump projectors half a year ago, you will remember that energy storage
> devices that can build up a jump charge over time and store it for even a
> few hours makes jump projectors possible and that jump projectors are even
> more economically effective than drop tanks.

"Jump projectors" require one *other* item, which is far more
important. They require the ability to "impose" a jump field or bubble
from *outside*. Without that, all the long term storage in the world
won't help. 

So the Annic Nova *doesn't* present that problem inasmuch as it
requires the jump drive to be part of the object being jumped. 

Ditto for the "power plant".

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

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

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 11:12:44 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Shiont(h)y Belt

In mail you write:

> Leonard Erickson writes:
>
>> If it's got a stellar wind, the <????>pause (the place the wind quits
>> displacing the interstellar medium) will be giving off a lot of hard
>> radiation. 
>
> For the sun, the heliopause.  I don't know if there's a separate term for 
> stars other than the sun.  Another point of note is that the solar wind 
> would be dramatically more dangerous than normal -- matter/antimatter 
> collisions would generate some extremely nasty, extremely high-
> penetration radiation.  Without specially designed shielding, expect
> it to cook the entire crew of a typical travelle starship in hours.

"Flatlander" gives a very good description.

If I could come up with something *else* that would plausibly cause
similar effects, I'd love to write a scenario of players exploring a
new but very odd system. Make sure to call their attention to the story
beforehand. That way they'll be *certain* what you are trying to do.
And wrong. :-)

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

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

Date: Tue, 05 Oct 1999 22:30:04 -0500
From: Alex Ingram <ingram@airmail.net>
Subject: XML for Traveller

- --------------4971B1F62DACA2335B589D63
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

MarkAyers wrote:

I'd start with what a character sheet would include.

Mark;

Here's what I include on my PC record sheet:

Name and Characteristic Scores
Race, Age, Sex, Citizenship
General Description or UPP of PCs home world
Educational History: Degrees, Universities
Imperial Service/Branch
Service Education: Schools/Training
Command and Special Assignments
Awards/Decorations
Discharge Rank, Years of Service, Security Clearance
Bionic or Cybernetic Implants
Psionic Talents
Professional Licenses/Permits/Certificates
Professional Associations/Guild Memberships
Savings/Credit Line/Special Benefits
Individual Skills/DM's
Contacts/Important NPCs known
Ownership of Equipment/Vehicles/Weapons/Real Estate
Family History/Significant Personal Events/Special Characteristics
Player's Name/Phone

Being a professional graphic designer I have developed dozens of Traveller
related forms for my Traveller universe. I'd be glad to share them with you
or help in designing new ones. Contact me and let's talk.

Alex Ingram
972-783-4575
between 7pm and midnight Dallas time

- --------------4971B1F62DACA2335B589D63
Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

<HTML>
<I>MarkAyers wrote:</I><I></I>

<P><I>I'd start with what a character sheet would include.</I>

<P>Mark;

<P>Here's what I include on my PC record sheet:

<P>Name and Characteristic Scores
<BR>Race, Age, Sex, Citizenship
<BR>General Description or UPP of PCs home world
<BR>Educational History: Degrees, Universities
<BR>Imperial Service/Branch
<BR>Service Education: Schools/Training
<BR>Command and Special Assignments
<BR>Awards/Decorations
<BR>Discharge Rank, Years of Service, Security Clearance
<BR>Bionic or Cybernetic Implants
<BR>Psionic Talents
<BR>Professional Licenses/Permits/Certificates
<BR>Professional Associations/Guild Memberships
<BR>Savings/Credit Line/Special Benefits
<BR>Individual Skills/DM's
<BR>Contacts/Important NPCs known
<BR>Ownership of Equipment/Vehicles/Weapons/Real Estate
<BR>Family History/Significant Personal Events/Special Characteristics
<BR>Player's Name/Phone

<P>Being a professional graphic designer I have developed dozens of Traveller
related forms for my Traveller universe. I'd be glad to share them with
you or help in designing new ones. Contact me and let's talk.

<P>Alex Ingram
<BR>972-783-4575
<BR>between 7pm and midnight Dallas time</HTML>

- --------------4971B1F62DACA2335B589D63--

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

Date: Wed, 6 Oct 1999 00:11:48 -0500
From: "Bont" <felix@felixcafe.com>
Subject: Re: GT: Ship's Lasers Design

Hey, David!

> In the latter case, p.124 states the compact
> option "substitutes compact, high-tech components
> for more routine systems reducing the weapon's
> weight and volume but increasing cost."

I used the standard "Divide Total Weight by 50 to get Volume" rule.

> The problem is there are no formulas for reducing
> the weight/volume or increasing cost.

The compact option comes into play during the weight and cost 
calculation.  You get 1/2 weight for 4 times cost ... using the 
standard lbs to cf rules, then the size is also halved.

Under the Weight Calculation it is the L variable.
Under Cost, it is an optional calculation.

I have VE2, 2nd printing.

- - - -
FELIX (Thomas L Bont)

- - Encrypt your messages!
  That way only the government knows what you wrote!

- - It is truly the wise man that knows what he doesn't!

- - With your shield or on it ... (Old Spartan Blessing)

- - Fidelitas super omnia, honore excepto

- - Help Stop Forest Fires.  Outlaw Matches.

Be sure to visit The FELIX Cafe at
     http://www.felixcafe.com/

- - - -

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

Date: Wed, 6 Oct 1999 00:17:43 -0500
From: "Bont" <felix@felixcafe.com>
Subject: Re: BRS Class Emergency lifeboat - THUDDD 10 non-Entry

> Hull.
> 
> In spite of limits set by most rules on ship construction, I'd say
> that only one "side" of a lifeboat need to meet the minimum structure
> limits/hull thickness. The boat orients to place that and the drive &
> other equipment between the lifesystem and the local star. Given the
> properties of high TL hull material, that should suffice to give
> "shadow shielding" from most flares. 
> 
> The rest of the boat can be lightweight composites and plastics. 

I would agree with this ... unless you find yourself between two stars 
in a binary system.  Granted that not all stars are so close as to 
cause a problem, but if it ever did happen you would probably want 
to shoot the engineer then :)


- - - -
FELIX (Thomas L Bont)

- - Encrypt your messages!
  That way only the government knows what you wrote!

- - It is truly the wise man that knows what he doesn't!

- - With your shield or on it ... (Old Spartan Blessing)

- - Fidelitas super omnia, honore excepto

- - Help Stop Forest Fires.  Outlaw Matches.

Be sure to visit The FELIX Cafe at
     http://www.felixcafe.com/

- - - -

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

Date: Wed, 06 Oct 1999 00:47:01 -0500
From: Black ICE <wombat@premier.net>
Subject: Re: BRS Class Emergency lifeboat - THUDDD 10 non-Entry

Leonard Erickson wrote:
> 
> In mail you write:
> 
> >>Without THUDDD10, the BRS would never have existed (it has the performance
> >>that I wanted a lifeboat to have) but a lifeboat that size needs to carry
> >>30 people, not one and a half. The other problem with the BRS is that it
> >>isn't finished. It needs several days playing around with the thrust/power
> >>options to find a compromise that is significantly smaller. Finally, it
> >>really ought to be 100MCr but I can't think how to make it that expensive.

Since I haven't seen the BRS, I can't give you AuricTech advice on
jacking up a spacecraft's capabilities, along with price.... >;-)
> 
> A couple of suggestions for "lifeboats".
> 
> Drive.
> 
> First, forget any *major* drive. The boats need enough power to get
> away from the ship if there's a chance of an explosion. And enough to
> *slowly* rendezvous with each other later. Or to have a somewhat
> controlled re-entry from planetary orbit.

I wish to point out that this suggestion, along with those that follow,
assume that your lifeboat serves no other function.  Working boats with
lifeboat capability need to have all the facilities of any other working
boat (decent drive, Standard or Extended life support, full hull, etc.).
> 
> The rendezvous bit is because a group of lifeboats is easier to locate
> than individual. And because if there are any survivors with vacsuit
> experience, you can link the "boats" and share power & consumables.
> 
> I said "rentry from orbit" because that's doable. Anything moving at
> typical "run to/from Jump" speeds is moving to darn fast for any
> reasonable power plant to let it achieve orbit, much less land.
> 
> Hull.
> 
> In spite of limits set by most rules on ship construction, I'd say that
> only one "side" of a lifeboat need to meet the minimum structure
> limits/hull thickness. The boat orients to place that and the drive &
> other equipment between the lifesystem and the local star. Given the
> properties of high TL hull material, that should suffice to give
> "shadow shielding" from most flares.
> 
> The rest of the boat can be lightweight composites and plastics.
> 
> Other.
> Life support should be a lot cruder than on shipboard. Probably time
> limited. Instead of recycling air & water, there will likely be
> chemical canisters to remove excess CO2 (lithium hydroxide or the
> like), water (various dessicants), and "trace gases" (activated
> charcoal).
> 
> I could see a setup that uses shadow temps to condense water from the
> air system instead of using dessicant chemicals. That'd stretch the
> water supply.
> 
> With the above sort of thinking, I'd expect some sort of "lifeboat" to
> be a bit more reasonable.

For a single-purpose lifeboat (equivalent to an inflatable raft with
provisions), your suggestions are quite useful.  In fact, AuricTech may
incorporate them into a future design.  Some of us, though, envision
functional small craft that can, at need, serve as lifeboats for
extended periods of time.

<<snip>>

- -- 
AuricTech Shipyards Journeyman Gearhead
"Gold-Plated [tm] solutions for copper-plated problems!" (r)
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Shadowlands/9776

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

Date: Wed, 06 Oct 1999 02:30:46 -0400
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@accesstoledo.com>
Subject: Re: Annic Nova 

> In mail you write:
> 
> >>I wrote:
> >>>My main problem with the ANNIC NOVA is the magic capacitors that allow a
> >>>jump charge to be built up over several weeks.
> >
> > Antony Farrell replied:
> >
> >>I actually assumed that there were two sets of capacitors, one set for each
> >>jump drive fitted (Annic Nova had two seperate jump drives) plus a set of
> >>storage batteries which both stored power for normal ships use and charged
> >>the jump drive capacitors allowing them to discharge in the normal way.
> >  
> >
> > And Keven R. Pittsinger likewise:
> >  
> >>I remember it as more of a bank of batteries or equivilent, kind of like
> >>Robert A. Heinlien's 'Shipstones'.
> >
> > That's not the point. If you remember the discussion about drop tanks and
> > jump projectors half a year ago, you will remember that energy storage
> > devices that can build up a jump charge over time and store it for even a
> > few hours makes jump projectors possible and that jump projectors are even
> > more economically effective than drop tanks.
> 
> "Jump projectors" require one *other* item, which is far more
> important. They require the ability to "impose" a jump field or bubble
> from *outside*. Without that, all the long term storage in the world
> won't help. 
> 
> So the Annic Nova *doesn't* present that problem inasmuch as it
> requires the jump drive to be part of the object being jumped. 
> 
> Ditto for the "power plant".

Exactly.  Thus, assuming the energy accumulators *aren't* jump capacitors, 
Annic Nova *doesn't* break later canon.  You still have to bleed power into 
the capacitors to jump, and that is gonna take some time.

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, 6 Oct 1999 02:41:09 -0400 (EDT)
From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
Subject: Re Computers, Shannon's Law, the IISS

>Presumably, given Shannon's law, and the fact that the 3i can make and handle
>X-ray lasers, is the hard limit of information transfer related to the
>frequency of these? Do they really want trillions of little X-Ray laser diodes
>all over the place? I'd imagine that one could be turned into a rather nasty
>little antipersonnel device in a pinch. What frequency _would they use? After
>all, x-rays cover a rather high range of frequencies.
>
>Or have they found a way around Shannon's law?

IMTU, no. What they have done IMTU is go to multiple frequency fibre optic
backbones (TL8, maybe even 7), lots of short range LOS Radio links as nodes
on the network, and personal devices generally use frequency-switching
links to these local nodes for long distance (TL 7-8). Usually full duplex,
sometimes multiple "Channel pairings", say two or three download channels,
and 1-2 upload channels. These radio-ties then are the equivalent of modern
PPP dial-ins, on multi-tiered exploded stars off of a "Spaghetti Ring" (a
term a CS major I know taught me, origin unkown, referring to a ring with
multiple shortcuts across it... and a central hub which is only used for
up-link to next higher level) and these rings have an organization of
larger and larger tiers from their central hubs.

Most TL 9-15 worlds IMTU have major 16-bit "text" transfer capabilities,
with an XGML based protocol... you can usually set your machine to contact
the local starport machine for local XGML "libraries"; local machines will
usually come with them on rom. Likewise, character sets are available. Part
of the scout service's duties IMTU are information compatability and
systemic interoperability standards maintenance.

Because the imperial government cuts a slight tax discount on worlds that
adhere to standard computer protocols within the Imperium, and to those who
do not locally issue currency, etc, ad nauseum, compliance has local
governments' blessings. In many things. And part of Survey's job is to
figure the tax assessments.

Then again, IMTU, a large part of what would be Civil Bureaucracy in many
people's TU's is migrated to the Scouts. Handling tax monies, administering
spacecraft liscensures, mail, field work for the various compliance
ministries, and internal intelligence for the imperial government, and
actually developing standards are all part of the massive scout service. I
figure the scouts to be almost as large in terms of personell as the Navy
or Marines, and I use the Cr500/annum/sophont for imperial forces figure.
and the scouts get Cr 75 of this... that's a huge budget, especially
considering that, at KCr 100 per year per scout (including ship & base
budgets), that's 1 scout per roughly 1400 people in the imperium. I
actually use a ratio of 1 per 4000 sophonts, but assume more in hardware
and upkeep.

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: Wed, 6 Oct 1999 02:41:09 -0400 (EDT)
From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
Subject: MT Damage

>Of course, it's not as if the game mechanics (especially for combat) for CT
>and MT (and perhaps TNE) are that hot: they are all more cumbersome than
>what GURPS uses (MT is especially obnoxious with regards to the damage
>rules). For my MT pbmail campaign (sorry, no openings) I've used the MT
>rules to see if you hit and (slightly modified) CT rules to determine
>damage.
>

Hmm... MT damage is simply a way of moving the attribute penalty figuring
till after the combat, and using the striker armor and penetration ratings
to modify expected damage. It really speeds up combats, IME. Mind you, it
doesn't save the players much time total, because they still have to apply
the dice to individual attributes, but it means not having to make the
damage rolls for spear chuckers.

I have found that (unless using the personal combat rules for ship-to-ship
combats) the numbers involved are all 3 places or less. When you start
taking pot-shots at ships or Bolos/Ogres, they have 4-6 place hits
tracks...but most of the time, you won't get significant damage. It also is
flexible, especially when doing large scale combat ala Ref's Companion,
something I found lacking in CT, Striker, TNE, T4, and GURPS.

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: Wed, 6 Oct 1999 19:44:18 +1300
From: "Rupert Boleyn" <rboleyn@paradise.net.nz>
Subject: Re: The Nth Traveller Flamewar

On 5 Oct 99, at 13:11, Leonard Erickson wrote:

> In mail you write:
> 
> >>However my
> >>bigest gripe is the Imperial mesurements used in the game (as a metric
> >>user, how am I suppose to know that there are 2000lbs in a ton?!?!).
> 
> Look it up?
> 
> Weight:
> 16 ounces = 1 pound
> 2000 pounds = 1 ton
> 
> length
> 12 inches = 1 foot
> 3 feet = 1 yard
> 5280 feet = 1 mile
> 
> area
> 640 acres = 1 sq. mile
> 
> volume
> 8 fl. ounces = 1 pint
> 2 pints = 1 quart
> 4 quarts = gallon
> 
> also 231 cu. inches = 1 gallon
> 
> Those should get you thru 99% of the American measurements. 

But not British, or Imperial, measurements where 1 ton = 2240 lbs and a 
gallon is defined as the volume of 10 lbs of water (at a certain 
density, etc, etc), or about 277.4 cu. inches. The fluid ounces are 
different, too - there are 20 Imperial fluid ounces in an Imperial 
pint. So in response to whoever posted that the 3I naturally uses the 
Imperial system - GURPS Traveller doesn't do that, either.



- --
Rupert Boleyn <paradise.net.nz>
Wellington, New Zealand

A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history.

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

End of Traveller-digest V1999 #1163
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