Traveller-digest      Friday, October 8 1999      Volume 1999 : Number 1175



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

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Battledress/Battlesuit Protection (GT)
Re: Firing two guns at once
Re: Battledress/Battlesuit Protection (GT)
Re: Battledress/Battlesuit Protection (GT)
Re: Battledress/Battlesuit Protection (GT)
Re: Battledress/Battlesuit Protection (GT)
Re: Annic Nova (canon)
RE: Annic Nova
Re: Hamlet in Space was: Re: falkenbergs legions firing into civilians
Re: Ammo Conservation ( was Re: Firing two guns at once)
Re: Ammo Conservation ( was Re: Firing two guns at once)
RE: Population Growth (was Annic Nova)
Re: Survivor kids (Was: Annic Nova)
Re: Annic Nova
Re: Ammo Conservation ( was Re: Firing two guns at once)
Re: Firing two guns at once
GT:Fusion Thrust (Heplar) Missiles
Re: GT:Fusion Thrust (Heplar) Missiles
RE: Traveller Versions
re:Starports Vehicles
RE: Survivor kids (Was: Annic Nova)
Jump Technology (was Re: Annic Nova)

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

Date: Fri, 08 Oct 1999 14:53:39
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <gridlore@pop.mindspring.com>
Subject: Re: Battledress/Battlesuit Protection (GT)

At 12:26 PM 10/8/1999 PST, you wrote:

>Silly question. What will a LAW or higher TL equivalent do to BD?

A M72A2 LAW does 6dx4(10), an average of 84 points of damage.  TL 11
BattleDress has a DR of 240 (24 against this attack.)

Ouch.
- -- 

Douglas E. Berry       gridlore@mindspring.com
http://gridlore.home.mindspring.com/index.html

We all enter the world in the same way: naked, screaming, soaked in blood.
But if you live your life right, that kind of thing doesn't have to stop
there.  
- -- Dana Gould 

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

Date: Fri, 08 Oct 1999 14:56:46
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <gridlore@pop.mindspring.com>
Subject: Re: Firing two guns at once

At 12:28 PM 10/8/1999 -0700, you wrote:

>That post intrigued me as well, Jesse was the author, wasn't he? How common
>is this cross-dominance? I have never heard of such a thing, but it brought
>to mind the way I shoot. For firearms and bows I am right handed, but when I
>shoot a wrist-rocket slingshot I am left-handed.

While in the Army, I fired the M-16A1 left handed (and have the near
permanent burns above my right eye to prove it), but when I went to sniper
training, I learned to shoot *right* handed.  Nowadays I fire anything with
a scope right handed, everything else goes left.
- -- 

Douglas E. Berry       gridlore@mindspring.com
http://gridlore.home.mindspring.com/sylea.html

TML Great Old One
Plague of the Traveller Riders of the Apocalypse
Chant "Gridlore" thrice to summon.

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

Date: Fri, 8 Oct 1999 15:15:17 -0700 (PDT)
From: Anthony Jackson <ajackson@molly.iii.com>
Subject: Re: Battledress/Battlesuit Protection (GT)

Douglas E. Berry writes:
> At 12:26 PM 10/8/1999 PST, you wrote:
> 
> >Silly question. What will a LAW or higher TL equivalent do to BD?
> 
> A M72A2 LAW does 6dx4(10), an average of 84 points of damage.  TL 11
> BattleDress has a DR of 240 (24 against this attack.)

Actually, it might be laminate (48) and it is thermal-superconducting (96 by
the rules, due to false beliefs about how shaped charges penetrated at the
time Ultra-Tech was first written).

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

Date: Fri, 08 Oct 1999 15:25:40 PDT
From: "Brandon Cope" <copeab@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: Battledress/Battlesuit Protection (GT)

>From: Anthony Jackson <ajackson@molly.iii.com>
>
> > Silly question. What will a LAW or higher TL equivalent do to BD?
>
>In what system?  In GT a TL 9 brilliant micro-missile does 6d*10
>(10), which won't get through the commando battledress (due to >laminate 
>armor; avg penetration is 1050 DR laminate),

But it will penetrate a fair amount of the time (still less than 50%, but 
enough to be worthwhile to try a shot).

Brandon

______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

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

Date: Fri, 08 Oct 1999 15:29:01 PDT
From: "Brandon Cope" <copeab@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: Battledress/Battlesuit Protection (GT)

>From: "Douglas E. Berry" <gridlore@pop.mindspring.com>
>
>At 12:26 PM 10/8/1999 PST, you wrote:
>
> >Silly question. What will a LAW or higher TL equivalent do to BD?
>
>A M72A2 LAW does 6dx4(10), an average of 84 points of damage.  TL 11
>BattleDress has a DR of 240 (24 against this attack.)
>
>Ouch.

Since the armor is laminate, it has DR 48 vs shaped charge attacks, but that 
doesn't help much -- 36 points of damage still gets through.

Brandon

______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

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

Date: Fri, 08 Oct 1999 15:32:19 PDT
From: "Brandon Cope" <copeab@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: Battledress/Battlesuit Protection (GT)

>From: Anthony Jackson <ajackson@molly.iii.com>
>
>Douglas E. Berry writes:
> > At 12:26 PM 10/8/1999 PST, you wrote:
> >
> > >Silly question. What will a LAW or higher TL equivalent do to BD?
> >
> > A M72A2 LAW does 6dx4(10), an average of 84 points of damage.  TL 11
> > BattleDress has a DR of 240 (24 against this attack.)
>
>Actually, it might be laminate (48) and it is thermal-superconducting (96 
>by the rules, due to false beliefs about how shaped charges penetrated at 
>the time Ultra-Tech was first written).
>

Apparently I missed this errata about thermal-superconducting armor.

Brandon

______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

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

Date: Fri, 08 Oct 1999 18:33:33 -0400
From: Michael Peters <travelleri@home.com>
Subject: Re: Annic Nova (canon)

Well, since the campaign in mention happened back in 1980 - 1981, it's
too late to change the explaination now! ;*> As I said in th efirst
follow up, I'd change a number o things if I were to do it again...
Probably make it a man (or other) made plot device. 

I'm begining to wonder if the "child sized" beds were really for
children, maybe they were for an early, as-yet,unfinished idea for the
Drone? That would explain ultra high tech. Could be I'd make the
accumulaors totally impossible to make, disassemble, by making them
Ancient relics.. kind of the way Black Globes are supposed to be.

Leonard Erickson wrote:
> 
> In mail you write:
> 
> 
> *Please*. Do not use "unknown elements". That's Star Trek BS.
> 
> In the Real World any element (or mixture thereof) is easily
> identifiable starting at around TL 5 or 6 (1910 technology).
> 
> 
- -- 
Mike Peters
travelleri@home.com

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

Date: Fri, 08 Oct 1999 17:43:00 -0500
From: Dan Roseberry <rosebee@troi.csw.net>
Subject: RE: Annic Nova

>>Everything that everbody already wrote on every email on Annic Nova.
>>Its all great stuff!

I never got a chance to see the JTAS article on Victoria. I know from
Adv 12 that the ancients hung out there, and I know the basic stats for
the place, but thats it. Can anybody tell me whats going on there?

How about Corfu (2602 Sp March) as a home system for Annic Nova? Assume
a couple of discoveries (an 3I ship crash landing, recovery of ancients
relics) causes people there to send out a diplomatic/explorer type ship
(can u say Star Trek: Annic Nova). The map chip of Victoria could be a
copy from the relics mentioned above. Slap together some salvage parts
from the 3I ship, the Droyne, and their own technology, and !presto!
Annic Nova.

As for no one in the 3I not discovering a "Annic Nova" human minor race,
who says that they have'nt. Maybe the 3I decides to keep their presence
secret for some reason. They could be dangerous (think X-files in
reverse, or the robots from Sabmiqs {Book 8}) or docile (3I interdiction
to keep the outside universe from destroying them). If so, the 3I isn't
going to let the PC's keep that ship for very long (possesion of
Ancients artifacts being illegal {Adv 12}).

And if they keep it, figure they owe taxes around say MCr 56 on salvage
income.
Sorry! I could'nt resist that [wicked evil grin] (:>})

Dan Roseberry (plop 101)  Hot Springs, Arkansas, USA.
IMTU: t4 tg tt to tc++ tm++ -tne-- he+  zh vr as hi so dr+ ne+ da+ etc.
"Anyone who is not completely terrified does not understand the
problem"--Thud Ridge

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

Date: Fri, 8 Oct 1999 18:52:07 EDT
From: RnLschaefr@aol.com
Subject: Re: Hamlet in Space was: Re: falkenbergs legions firing into civilians

In a message dated 10/8/99 10:28:17 AM Eastern Daylight Time, 
alanb@elf.brisnet.org.au writes:

<< 
 "The undiscover'd world, from whose bourn
 No Traveller returns," >>
You mean "undiscovered country" don't you? ;)
BobS

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

Date: Sat, 9 Oct 1999 12:04:00 +1300
From: "Rupert Boleyn" <rboleyn@paradise.net.nz>
Subject: Re: Ammo Conservation ( was Re: Firing two guns at once)

On 8 Oct 99, at 12:08, Douglas E. Berry wrote:

> "Assorted colors"?  Last time I checked, they came in red and green.
> Tracers are useless for signalling.  For one thing, they are just as fast
> as a speeding bullet!  You have to be looking in just the right place.

There's actually quite a lot of choice if you start looking at private 
company offerings, but I suspect that they would only produce to order, 
so you'd need to be after quite a few of them. Of course in Trav I'm 
sure that some world somewhere would have the 'cottage industry' 
environmant conducive to limited runs of this sort of specialty item.


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

A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history.

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

Date: Sat, 9 Oct 1999 12:04:00 +1300
From: "Rupert Boleyn" <rboleyn@paradise.net.nz>
Subject: Re: Ammo Conservation ( was Re: Firing two guns at once)

On 8 Oct 99, at 11:58, Douglas E. Berry wrote:

> At 11:13 AM 10/8/1999 -0700, you wrote:
> >Sethkimmel@aol.com writes:
> >
> >> Of course now EVERYONE knows you have run empty...:-)
> >
> >Get a tracer style which is only visible from behind the bullet.
> 
> No such animal.  The bloody things are hard enough to see in anything but
> pitch black night.

I read in some weapons mag a few yaers back that some private company 
had developed a type of tracer round that's only visible in a 15 degree 
arc to the rear. I haven't seen anything about it since, though.


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

A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history.

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

Date: Sat, 9 Oct 1999 12:04:00 +1300
From: "Rupert Boleyn" <rboleyn@paradise.net.nz>
Subject: RE: Population Growth (was Annic Nova)

On 8 Oct 99, at 11:47, Ian Ferguson wrote:

>  Only females are considered (males are considered
>  more or less superfluous by population biologists).

I presume that they aren't concerned with such trivial matters as 
whether or not there is enough food for all these children, then? I 
made a simple model of a primitive village few few years back, and came 
to the conclusion that killing off a goodly chunk of the adult male 
population (in a war, for example) would have almost as bad an effect 
as the death of the same number of women, simply because of the loss of 
food production.


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

A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history.

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

Date: Sat, 9 Oct 1999 12:04:01 +1300
From: "Rupert Boleyn" <rboleyn@paradise.net.nz>
Subject: Re: Survivor kids (Was: Annic Nova)

On 8 Oct 99, at 15:51, Timothy.Collinson@solent.ac.u wrote:

> My 'solution' was that they wouldn't 'solve' it and have quite a high
> death rate.  At the same time, I figured there might be one youngster
> who'd happened to attend a birth who'd become the instant 'expert' for
> what it would be worth.
> 
> 
> >every girl could have another child each year, though personally I
> wouldn't
> >think that very lightly.
> 
> I am right in thinking that breastfeeding acts as an (effective?)
> contraceptive aren't I?

It's not especially effective in the modern sense, but it's better
than just about any other non-technological methods. The rhythum
method is better, properly used, but that requires a stable menstrual
cycle - something that a group of teenagers in a high-stress situation
and possibly suffering malnutrition probably won't have. The best
contraceptive in this situation is obviously abstinence.

Also the maternal death rate in many pre-modern societies probably 
wasn't as high as many suppose. Our current perception is coloured by 
17th - 18th century europe where many deaths were the result of the 
existing medicine, and from the third world which has a higher rate of 
malnutrition than was common in some pre-modern societies. In 
particular hunter-gatherer cultures living on good land (something you 
don't see these days) had good nutrition and a fair amount of free time.


> >Anyway, once the first generation begins dying of old age, you can begin
> >handling it as a simple percentage increase each year.
> 
> >Personally. if I wanted to set up such a situation, I'd skip lightly over
> >fertility and death rates and simply increase population by 2D6-2% of the
> >original population per year for the first generation, then gradually
> >throttle down to a steady increase of, say, 1% of the whole population
> >per year (or half a percent or 2).
> 
> 
> 
> Many thanks.  That's just what I wanted - the complex low down followed by
> a quick and easy solution!  Just my cup of tea.
> 
> 
> Cheers
> 
> tc
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 



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

A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history.

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

Date: Sat, 9 Oct 1999 12:04:01 +1300
From: "Rupert Boleyn" <rboleyn@paradise.net.nz>
Subject: Re: Annic Nova

On 8 Oct 99, at 18:00, Timothy.Collinson@solent.ac.u wrote:

> 
> 
> 
> 
> >><<  Does anyone know how easy ways to work out how many would be in the
> >> population after, say, X generations given a percentage infant
> >> mortality rate (which would be high given they have little skill and no
> >> equipment)
> >>
> 
> >not to mention the mother's mortality rate, since there are no
> obstetricians
> >available...
> 
> 
> Good thought,  I had envisioned some might well die in childbirth.

From some research I've been doing on this area (for a fantasy 
campaign) I've come to the conclusion that while the maternal death 
rate will rise quite a bit the biggest effect the lack of modern 
medicine will have is on the live birth rate. The rate of stillborns, 
misscariages and immediate post-natal child death would go up 
enormously, especially as the only cure for a lot of problems in 
pregnancy (aside from 'wait and see') was to induce abortion, with 
varying death rates for the potential mother, depending on the method 
used.

In a SciFi 'marooned' environment things wouldn't be quite as bad, 
because there would be a greater level of basic knowledge of such 
things as basic hygene and the importance of sterilization, etc.


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

A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history.

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

Date: Sat, 9 Oct 1999 12:18:47 +1300
From: "Rupert Boleyn" <rboleyn@paradise.net.nz>
Subject: Re: Ammo Conservation ( was Re: Firing two guns at once)

On 8 Oct 99, at 14:41, Douglas E. Berry wrote:

> At 11:55 AM 10/8/1999 PST, you wrote:
> 
> >So it should pentrate as normal. With a slight chanche of igniting
> >anything flammable it lodges in (like a kevlar vest :-)
> 
> Ix-nay on the incendiary bullets.  For the tiny fuel sources in a tracer
> to actually ignite anything, it would have to be *really* easy to burn..
> like gasoline soaked clothing in an areas heavy with gas fumes.  Even
> then, I'd wager that a spark from a ricochet would be a better ignition
> source.
> 
> I have fired over two hundred rounds of 7.62mm tracer into dry brush at
> Ft. Irwin in the hopes of setting it ablaze (he he he.. fire is COOL!!)
> with no success.

Here in NZ we obviously have special high-flammability plants :) I've 
set a Toi-toi bush (the local species of pampas grass) in summer time 
with 100 rnds of 5.56 tracer fired from a C9 (the Canadian licence 
built FN minimi) LMG. It's also quite common for tussock bushes to 
catch fire from tracer in summer, though the common cause of this is 
thunder-flash grenade simulators and idiots using flares in areas with  
total fire bans.



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

A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history.

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

Date: Sat, 9 Oct 1999 12:18:47 +1300
From: "Rupert Boleyn" <rboleyn@paradise.net.nz>
Subject: Re: Firing two guns at once

On 8 Oct 99, at 14:56, Douglas E. Berry wrote:

> At 12:28 PM 10/8/1999 -0700, you wrote:
> 
> >That post intrigued me as well, Jesse was the author, wasn't he? How
> >common is this cross-dominance? I have never heard of such a thing, but
> >it brought to mind the way I shoot. For firearms and bows I am right
> >handed, but when I shoot a wrist-rocket slingshot I am left-handed.
> 
> While in the Army, I fired the M-16A1 left handed (and have the near
> permanent burns above my right eye to prove it), but when I went to sniper
> training, I learned to shoot *right* handed.  Nowadays I fire anything
> with a scope right handed, everything else goes left. -- 

It's funny - I'm left handed, and I learnt to shoot that way, so when I 
joined up I naturally shot that way. We used M16A1s and I never, ever 
had that happen to me. The only time it did happen was when some sod 
grabbed my Steyer AUG and I ended up with his. That really hurt! This 
is the major reason I dislike bullpup designs - a leftie can't use a 
rightie's weapon and vice-versa.



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

A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history.

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

Date: Sat, 09 Oct 1999 00:14:59 +0100
From: John Buston <John.Buston@tesco.net>
Subject: GT:Fusion Thrust (Heplar) Missiles

Using Gurps Vehicles 2 I have designed some Fusion Thrust (Heplar) missiles. It
turns out that at GTL9, which translates as CTL9 to CTL11, fusion thrust missile
outperform reactionless thruster missiles.  They provide both superior
performance and a much lower price than the equivalent reactionless thruster
model. This situation is reversed at GTL10 (CTL12). Note that these are space
only missiles with minimal armor and no warhead - they rely on a high relative
velocity for their damage (i.e. they are KKMs).

TL9 Fusion Thrust Space Interceptor Missiles

2.0G Missile, 370 lb, 6.0 cf, Cr 9,300, 620 lbs thrust (fully vectored)
Endurance: 1 hour, Powered range 81,000 miles, 
Maximum terminal velocity 45 miles per second.

3.0G Missile, 550 lb, 8.9 cf, Cr 12,200, 1260 lbs thrust (fully vectored)
Endurance: 1 hour, Powered range 122,000 miles, 
Maximum terminal velocity 68 miles per second.

4.0G Missile, 1150 lb, 17.5 cf, Cr 22,200, 3200 lbs thrust (fully vectored)
Endurance: 1 hour, Powered range 162,000 miles, 
Maximum terminal velocity 90 miles per second.

TL10 Fusion Thrust Space Interceptor Missiles

4.0G Missile, 350 lb, 5.7 cf, Cr 15,300, 970 lbs thrust (fully vectored)
Endurance: 1 hour, Powered range 162,000 miles, 
Maximum terminal velocity 90 miles per second.

8.0G Missile, 1430 lb, 23.2 cf, Cr 40,000, 5650 lbs thrust (fully vectored)
Endurance: 1 hour, Powered range 324,000 miles, 
Maximum terminal velocity 180 miles per second.

Example TL8 Reactionless Thruster Space Interceptor Missile

0.5G Missile, 475 lb, 7.4 cf, Cr 24,350, 240 lbs thrust (50 lbs vectored)
Endurance: 1 hour, Powered range 20,000 miles, 
Maximum terminal velocity 11 miles per second.

Example TL9 Reactionless Thruster Space Interceptor Missile

2.0G Missile, 475 lb, 7.3 cf, Cr 44,300, 950 lbs thrust (50 lbs vectored)
Endurance: 1 hour, Powered range 81,000 miles, 
Maximum terminal velocity 45 miles per second.

Example TL10 Reactionless Thruster Space Interceptor Missile

9.0G Missile, 200 lb, 3.0 cf, Cr 8,000, 1785 lbs thrust (50 lbs vectored)
Endurance: 1 hour, Powered range 365,000 miles, 
Maximum terminal velocity 200 miles per second.

Stones Throw Shipyards
http://homepages.tesco.net/~john.buston/StonesThrow.htm

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

Date: Fri, 8 Oct 1999 16:30:41 -0700 (PDT)
From: Anthony Jackson <ajackson@molly.iii.com>
Subject: Re: GT:Fusion Thrust (Heplar) Missiles

John Buston writes:
> Using Gurps Vehicles 2 I have designed some Fusion Thrust (Heplar)

While the GVE2 thermal fusion rockets have rather ... optimistic performance, they're nowhere near HEPlaR (which has insanely optimistic performance).

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

Date: Fri, 08 Oct 1999 18:33:08 -0500
From: Charles R Hensley <hensley.cr@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: RE: Traveller Versions

David P. Summers wrote:

<snip>
>>>I guess I'm clueless. My well thumbed GURPS Basic book list a
gazillion
>>
>>>skills relating to tasks with the classifications (mental/hard) or
>>>(physical/easy) with a default to indicate what Joe Genero has to
roll
>>to
>>>accomplish a task using that skill. I always thought that was a "task

>>>system".
>>
>>This is not a complete task system.  The ratings given (easy, average,

>>hard, very hard) rate the skills relative to each other.  What is
>>missing is rating tasks to the skill system.
>
>Lets be clear about this.  This is true if "complete" means "not just
>like MT".  Otherwise, one could say that MT doesn't have a "proper"
>task system because it, for example, doesn't have a way of
>rating how some skills are harder than others.
>
>The fact is that people have made such rating systems.  They
>are fairly trivial.  I've had one for years and it hasn't attracted
>much attention because it just isn't a big deal.  Such things
>can be convenient for new GM's, but to say the lack of one means
>you don't have a task system (or a "proper" task system) is
>just hooey.

My intent was to say that the skill system by default rates the average
difficulty, and what both CT and GURPS lack "IN MY OPINION" is the game
designers intent of how different difficulties of tasks should be
handled, these should be given as examples so that the GM can have a
basis to judge other tasks.  NO game system can have a task system that
is completely developed so that ALL possible tasks have been defined.

MT had a task system that defined difficulty levels, modifiers to skill
rolls, and gave examples so that other tasks could be defined by the
GM.  So did T4.  I refused to play GT when it first came out because I
did not have the time to calculate the statistics of the game system to
determine the appropreate modifiers and I did not see anything which
calculated these for me.

Charles

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

Date: Sat, 09 Oct 1999 00:45:52 +0100
From: John Buston <John.Buston@tesco.net>
Subject: re:Starports Vehicles

Loren,

I tried to contact you directly but my messages just bounce, as follows.

A message that you sent could not be delivered to all of its recipients. The
following address(es) failed:

  LKW@IO.COM:
    SMTP error from remote mailer after MAIL FROM:
    <John.Buston@tesco.net>:
    host mx.io.com [199.170.88.17]:
    550 REJECT

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

Date: Sat, 9 Oct 1999 12:57:21 +1300
From: "Andrew Moffatt-Vallance" <a.vallance@netaccess.co.nz>
Subject: RE: Survivor kids (Was: Annic Nova)

Date sent:      	Fri, 08 Oct 1999 15:42:12 -0400
From:           	Ian Ferguson <ian@vax2.concordia.ca>

> Timothy Collinson writes:
> <snipped>
> >I am right in thinking that breastfeeding acts as an
> >(effective?) contraceptive aren't I?
> <snipped>

> 	I think that it may reduce the odds of getting pregnant,
> 	but not to zero.  Getting only barely enough to eat is
> 	probably more effective at contraception.

Exclusively breastfeeding is a 99%+ effective contraceptive (thats equal to
the best chemical contraceptive). It drops off fairly rapidly once the child
starts to wean. Effectiveness is also decreased dramatically if the child is
not exclusively breasfed.


Andrew etc
Homepage http://users.netaccess.co.nz/amv/
Traveller http://www.downport.com/amv/
 "What do you expect from a species who's females are
 always in heat" Ko of the Ilui clan on Humans and honour

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

Date: Fri, 08 Oct 1999 20:10:23 -0400
From: Christopher Thrash <thrash@io.com>
Subject: Jump Technology (was Re: Annic Nova)

>Date: Fri, 08 Oct 1999 12:23:14
>From: "Douglas E. Berry" <gridlore@pop.mindspring.com>
>Subject: Re: Annic Nova 
>
>>> I must admit to being totally at a loss at this point for why anyone would
>>> waste so much economically useful space on LH2 tankage, if it is not a
>>> requirement for jump (the only mention in the article is related to power
>>> production).
>>
>>Because the energy density needed in the accumulators is so great, it's 
>>beyond TL15?

The /Annic Nova/ could be overhauled "in orbit, with the nearby world
having a tech level of at least 10," albeit by four very talented
individuals: "two with electronic-3+ and jack-of-all-trades-2+, and two
with mechanical-3+ and jack-of-all-trades-1+." (JTAS#1, p. 31). There is
also an extensive discussion of implementing breakdowns for the
character-owners to fix. This doesn't sound like superscience to me.

>Because it's more conveinent?  ...
>Perhaps solar charging takes far too long for any real commercial
>operations, so people accept the limitations of the massive LHyd load.

Doesn't help: according to Marc's JTAS article, energy is energy. 

If it is possible to jump using only energy (whether accumulated over weeks
using a solar array, minutes using a fusion power plant, or seconds using
an antimatter power source) then there is no reason for essentially half of
a ship's available cargo space to carry LH2 instead. This leads directly to
the kind of "jump station" that Hans Rancke-Madsen and David Summers have
discussed here in the past. 

I prefer to justify what we know of canon, rather than tear it down, show
how it won't work, and substitute something entirely different. Clearly, in
every version of Traveller huge amounts of LH2 are used for *something*
during jump, by every ship known -- except one. The LH2 fueling requirement
is repeatedly cited as a major factor in interstellar economics,
communications/transportation, and warfare. 

If there were a more economical alternative (such as jump stations), it
would be in use; since it is not in use, it doesn't exist; QED. [(A => U)
=> (~U => ~A) -- yeah, that's right. Modus tollens.] There are all kinds of
reasons why such systems might not be in use; that they are technologically
infeasible is, however, one of the simplest.* 

Thom Jones-Low <tjoneslo@together.net> writes:
>	High Guard 2nd ed. P39: "A ship which breaks off by jumping must have a
>destination and enough fuel to get there. It must expend energy points
>equal to two turns output from the power plant whos number is equal to
>the jump being attempted. ... A ship which can not summon the required
>energy in two turns may not jump at all."
>	
>	From this can be concluded the LH2 Jump fuel is *not* used before the
>jump, but during the jump. The energy required to open the Jump Space
>hole is supplied by the Power Plant, the Jump Fuel is used for something
>else. 

The problem here is that HG/TCS also permits drop tanks: "Enough fuel for
the power plant must be carried in normal fuel tanks; jump fuel and
additional fuel may be carried in one of the additional tankage types..."
(TCS, p. 13). Thus jump fuel (from drop tanks at least) is expended _prior_
to jump. 

Moreover, Marc's article specifies only five "required items" for jump:
power source (which explicitly need not involve LH2), energy storage nodes
("capacitors or large fast-discharge batteries"), strong hull (with an
integral "network of wiring that maintains the jump field around the
ship"), computer, and jump coils. [Jump coils "channel a ship's energy
within the jump drive" and "are constructed of /lanthanum/" -- the only
such mention in the text, contrary to SOM.]

So I'm stumped -- what is all that LH2 used for, if the /Annic Nova/
doesn't need any of it?


*For the record, I believe (based on detailed analysis by Hans
Rancke-Madsen, Jim Maclean, and Ian Whitchurch) that drop tanks are
feasible at TL15 (HG1, p. 32, actually said TL12), but that they are
probably too hazardous to be widely accepted. This fits established canon,
but does not invalidate them or prevent their use.

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

End of Traveller-digest V1999 #1175
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