
-------- TML Message #675 --------

Archive-Message-Number: 675
Date: Wed, 1 Nov 89 09:17 EDT
From: B_MAHONE%UNHH.BITNET@mitvma.mit.edu
Subject: Nukes and PC's


I made the off-hand decision last week that PC Starship operators cannot
normally get access to nuclear missiles.  (I mean, *really* now...)

Does anyone allow this?  I can see some black-market access for Pirates and
such, but not normal merchants.

Comments?

- -Bob                                              b_mahoney@unhh.bitnet

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-------- TML Message #676 --------

Archive-Message-Number: 676
From: (Bertil Jonell) d9bertil@dtek.chalmers.se
Subject: Sector Maps & Data
Date: Wed, 1 Nov 89 15:23:11 MET DST


A Question:

Is there any UPP data for the Deneb, Corridor and Vland sector available
anywhere? 
Have GDW's or DGP's various periodicals had any articles about these sectors?
- -bertil-

- -- 
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NET: d9bertil@dtek.chalmers.se 
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-------- TML Message #677 --------

Archive-Message-Number: 677
Date: Wed,  1 Nov 89 17:46:50 -0500 (EST)
From: (Ronald Henry Daubel) rd1g+@andrew.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: Nukes and PC's


I run my campaign such that most weapons of a heavy nature are hard to
get unless you are on a very low law level world (in which case you are
most likely dealing with the black market/pirates/mob anyway).

On the upper tech/law level worlds, I have a couple of different black
markets, with listings of what the PC's can purchase, how much and what
the availability is (%).  I use a few different lists because for lower
tech worlds, you wont be able to get some stuff, and the same is true of
high law worlds.

I don't have anything cohesive with me (I'm at school, home is 400 miles
away) but if I can dig something up I'll post it.

Ron Daubel

Arpa:  rd1g@andrew.cmu.edu

Bitnet: r746rd1g@vb.cc.cmu.edu
           arioch@drycas.club.cc.cmu.edu

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-------- TML Message #678 --------

Archive-Message-Number: 678
Date: Wed, 1 Nov 89 18:11:15 -0500
From: (Mark Gellis) f3w@mentor.cc.purdue.edu
Subject: Nukes



Nukes are available in my world, although I restrict access to them.
Usually, you can only get them through governments.  Sometimes, the black
market will have some.  Corporations involved in deep space mining also
have some (where do you think the black market usually gets them from?).
Of course, if you get a character wealthy enough to buy the facilities
required to manufacture them, you could probably start building them for
yourself.  

Nukes are an accepted part of life in my gameworld.  They are a tool.
Like any tool, they can be misued, which is why societies have laws, ethical
systems, and sometimes religion.  There are much more dangerous things in
my world than nuclear weapons.

Gaming with nukes can be fun, but they do offer a problem for a GM who
likes to give his players a "way out" when they screw up--if you screw up
and get hit by a nuke, there is no way out.  If you're in a spacecraft and
a five-kiloton nuke hits, you're gone, you're hot plasma, end of story,
roll the credits, Mr. Carpenter.

Just one more "Remember, your actions may have reprecussions.  Think before
you act" kind of thing players may have to deal with.

One way to control players with/looking for nukes.  Make them legal, if they
are licensed.  Governments allow companies (player characters can incorporate
themselves, just the way authors and other private citizens do now, so they
can get around that one) to have nukes for industrial purposes, etc., but
they naturally want to keep tabs on anything so potentially destructive;
also, you only get to buy your nukes when you have permission (i.e., a 
license), and you have to apply for it and give good reasons.  Governments
may also get to approve each use of a nuke, depending on law levels, etc.
Not only does this make it difficult for characters to get nukes, but it
provides potential additional adventures because anyone who applies for
this kind of license will have a nice government file on them, and it lets
the GM punish players who misuse their nukes (if they wish to do so).

Enjoy.


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-------- TML Message #679 --------

Archive-Message-Number: 679
Date: Wed, 1 Nov 89 20:38:51 PST
From: gazis@halley.arc.nasa.gov
Subject: The Nuclear OptionxD



 
>I made the off-hand decision last week that PC Starship operators cannot
>normally get access to nuclear missiles.  (I mean, *really* now...)
 
>Does anyone allow this?  I can see some black-market access for Pirates and
>such, but not normal merchants.

     Yes.  Nuclear weapons are available in the Eight Worlds.  They are
technically illegal, but there is no effective law enforcement beyond
the Frontier.  No one who takes even the simplest precautions to hide
the identify of his ship need fear prosecution.  
     And nuclear weapons have been used:

>Comments?
 
     The availability of nukes raises the musical question:  Is such
attire appropriate for a gentleman?
     True, nukes are handy devices for clearing landing fields in otherwise 
unsuitable terrain:  They remove ground cover, produce a smooth hardened 
crust capable of supporting the weight of a small starship, and eliminate
hostile natives all in one simple fast operation.  But they are also:
     1) Expensive.  There are almost always cheaper ways to do the job.
     2) Inappropriate.  Most military opperations in the Eight Worlds
are mounted to grab loot.  Which loot is generally less valuable if it
takes the form of a cloud of ions.
     3) Marginally illegal.  Yes, there is no law enforcement outside
the Pale, but many worlds capable of producing weapons of mass destruction
also make some attempt to regulate their ownership.  One must locate a 
suitably unscrupulous dealer, procure the weapon in secret, and smuggle 
it off the planet.  These are not impossible tasks, but they are tasks.
     4) Ineffective aginst a sophisticated opponent.  While the physical
laws of the Eight Worlds universe evidently do not allow for atomic
damper fields, they do allow for small fast inexpensive missiles which 
home in on radiation sources.  
     Individually these considerations are trivial.  Collectively they
have served to deter casual exercise of the nuclear option except in
one EXTREMELY exceptional case.

Paul R. Gazis                        
gazis@hal.span.nasa.gov   or
gazis%hal.span@ames.arc.nasa.gov   or
something like that


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-------- TML Message #680 --------

Archive-Message-Number: 680
Subject: Nukes and PC's 
Date: Wed, 1 Nov 89 18:50:09 EST
From: (Jonathan Bayer) jbayer@ispi.COM


> 
> 
> I made the off-hand decision last week that PC Starship operators cannot
> normally get access to nuclear missiles.  (I mean, *really* now...)
> 
> Does anyone allow this?  I can see some black-market access for Pirates and
> such, but not normal merchants.
> 
> Comments?
> 
> -Bob                                              b_mahoney@unhh.bitnet


No, I am not going to allow that either.  My campaign (which is just
starting) is going to be based on an Ahzanti High Lightning ship (owned
by the PCs) with the major weaponry removed.


JB
- -- 
Jonathan Bayer		Intelligent Software Products, Inc.
(201) 245-5922		500 Oakwood Ave.
jbayer@ispi.COM		Roselle Park, NJ   07204    

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-------- TML Message #681 --------

Archive-Message-Number: 681
Date: Thu, 2 Nov 89 09:43 EST
From: METLAY@vms.cis.pitt.edu
Subject: nukes



As a rule, I strongly forbid them in my campaign, for a number of reasons.

First and foremost, they're illegal and Imperially controlled by the Rules
of War, or whatever the GDW term is. That's a strong deterrent even to the
black market, as the Imperial authorities have a way of finding people who
violate what little territory they reserve for themselves and making them 
go bye-bye.

Second, they're often not the best way to do things. There are better and more
effective ways of clearing land, breaking up asteroids, and eliminating large
scale military targets. About the only thing they're really good for is killing
large numbers of civilians in quick and gruesome fashion.

Third, they're terribly dirty and wasteful of precious land and resources. The
Imperial government as well as the various planetary governments frowns on such
waste; it's bad for business.

Since the military has and uses dampers on anything larger than a personnel
carrier, they only do well against civilian targets that can't afford to be
damped. This limits their effectiveness. However, the general abhorrence of
nuclear weapons in the Imperium obviates even marginally practical uses, like
convincing a shipload of pirates to leave you alone. In my campaign, the early
TL development of nukes is watched and controlled very carefully by the 
Imperium; failures in the policy (that we know of so far) are rare and far
between: Weipu, Ganulph (which was a military target in a dirty war) and
Asmodeus (which wasn't an Imperial world).

As a final psychological deterrent to players who seem to think that nukes are
somehow vital to prove (to me? to each other? I'm still working on this one)
their machismo, I provide any number of hints that even the lowest orders of
criminalia in the Imperium regards people who use nukes to achieve their ends
with about the same solicitude as that the Dusseldorf underworld used in 
hunting down a child-murderer in the 1930s, as chronicled in the excellent
Fritz Lang movie "M". This is astonishingly effective:

SNOOTY CHARACTER: "How dare you cast aspersions on me, you villain?"
UNDERWORLD BOSS: "I'm not the one trying to buy a nuke! Boys, take this
                  filthy stinkscrabbler out back and blow his head off."

As a side note, I wouldn't mind a discussion (here or via Email) on the topic
of Traveller players and (for want of a better word) player/character machismo.
After eleven years of running this game, I am finally enjoying the company of
a small group of players who equip themselves sensibly, disport themselves
maturely, and seem to have risen above the endless technological and military
variations on the childhood game of "my pee pee's longer than yours." There
may or may not be a need for someone, somewhere, to have nuclear weapons, I 
suppose, but the thought of putting them in the hands of players with something
(God knows what) to prove seems somehow obscene to me. Probably a character
fault of my own....

metlay

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-------- TML Message #682 --------

Archive-Message-Number: 682
From: (Adrian Hurt) adrian%cs.heriot-watt.ac.uk@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Nukes and PC's
Date: Mon, 6 Nov 89 10:41:06 BST



> > I made the off-hand decision last week that PC Starship operators cannot
> > normally get access to nuclear missiles.  (I mean, *really* now...)
> > 
> > Does anyone allow this?  I can see some black-market access for Pirates and
> > such, but not normal merchants.
> > 
> > -Bob                                              b_mahoney@unhh.bitnet
> 
> No, I am not going to allow that either.  My campaign (which is just
> starting) is going to be based on an Ahzanti High Lightning ship (owned
> by the PCs) with the major weaponry removed.

Within the Imperium, nuclear weapons are banned outright, except for use by the
regular Imperial forces.  Admittedly there is a small dispute going on as to who
exactly constitutes regular Imperial forces (:-) but I doubt any PC's are able
to stake any such claim.

I once played in a campaign about some Vargr.  I played a high charisma Vargr
who, by an interesting and fully played-out route, came to be in sole charge of
a 30,000 ton cruiser.  Fully armed.  It was TL16, too (check the Vargr Alien
module for the capital of the Kedzudh Aeng).  We had some fun, but I think we
had more fun when we were only using a little 400 ton corsair.

 "Keyboard? How quaint!" - M. Scott

 Adrian Hurt			     |	JANET:  adrian@uk.ac.hw.cs
 UUCP: ..!ukc!cs.hw.ac.uk!adrian     |  ARPA:   adrian@cs.hw.ac.uk

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-------- TML Message #683 --------

Archive-Message-Number: 683
Date: Mon, 6 Nov 89 17:24:09 EST
From: (Chris Bartlett) cdba_ltd@uhura.cc.rochester.edu
Subject: Re: Nukes in Traveller



Hello everybody! Mr. Perkins hasn't put me on the mailing list yet ( soon
though ), but I couldn't resist tossing in my two cents on this subject
anyway.  

     As a referee, in my Traveller campaigns I severely restrict civilian
access to nuclear weapons, ESPECIALLY civilian player characters.  My 
reason for this is simply that I feel giving PCs nukes makes for poor
game balance.  I most emphatically DO NOT want a bunch of PCs with a
subsidized merchant taking on squadrons of Vargr corsairs, Imperial
cruisers, or whatever.  Believe me, some of my players would do it too!
Unfortunately, some of the people I have refereed were of a somewhat
militant mindset ( who hasn't refereed someone like that? ), so such
restrictions were necessary to the type of campaign I was attempting to 
run.  

     Basically, if you are going to permit the players to acquire heavy
weaponry, be it nukes, battle dress and FGMP-14s, or whatever, you have
to provide them with appropriate challenges to overcome.  The players 
have to be challenged as players, to keep them interested. Most players
would get bored knocking over cargo ships with a battlecruiser after a
while, or at least I'd rather play with players who would...

     Anyway, that's some of my thoughts on the subject.  I'd really
like to hear any comments on it.  

Chris Bartlett 


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-------- TML Message #684 --------

Archive-Message-Number: 684
From: ("45252-Peter L. Berghold") wrgate.wr.tek.com!uunet.uu.net!allegra!violin!plb@tektronix.TEK.COM
Subject: Re: Nukes and PC's
Date: Tue, 7 Nov 89 10:52:02 EST


>> 
	[ text delteted concerning PC's with nukes to save bandwidth ]

The one time I had characters with nukes was the time I was playing a character
who was the commander of some merc forces that had been hired by the Imperium 
to put down a particularly ugly civil war between internal parties to an 
autonomous state.   The concern here from the Imperial point of view was the 
fact that this conflict threatened the stability of of surrounding sectors.
The mercs were given carte blanche authority from as high as the Emperor 
himself  to use whatever means needed to put the civil war to an end.  

The real reason, unknown to the mercs at the time, that the Imperium was so 
interested in quelling this disturbance was that essential ingredients in the
Emperor's anagathic treatments originated from this area.  As long as the 
civil war blazed, no stuff! 

As it turned out, the nukes were never used.   Just the mere threat of the use
of nukes on the population centers was enough to bring the beligerants to the 
negotiating table.

Pete



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-------- TML Message #685 --------

Archive-Message-Number: 685
Date: Thu, 2 Nov 89 08:48:01 EST
From: givler@cbmvax.commodore.COM (Greg Givler - QA)
Subject: Re:  Nukes and PC's


I have allowed them in certain situations, nukes that is, but very rarely.
They have to go thru the local organized crime boss, usually. Plus the 
missiles cost about 10X book value, more if you upset your seller. True, 
you can't just go up to your local weapons dealer and say I'd like three
tactical nuclear missiles, please, and could you gift wrap them they're 
for a friend. That would cause a raised eyebrow or to, at the local law 
enforcement agency.

Greg

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-------- TML Message #686 --------

Archive-Message-Number: 686
Date: Wed, 8 Nov 89 10:27:26 est
From: mleymaster@lucy.wellesley.edu
Subject: Traveller Literature Search


Jim Cunningham's recent remarks about a pile of old HighPassage magazines
prompts me to ask after a related item.  Several of us on this list have
probably been looking for literally years for a copy of HighPassage #1.
Can Jim or anyone else lend me a copy or swap it or something.
Ive got extra issues of some of the old Judges Guild sectors, a duplicate 
copy of Paranoia Press' Beyond, and like Jim more than a few old copies
of High Passage and Far Traveller.  I'd like to exchange some or all of
this for a readable edition of Paranoia Press' other sector booklet, which
I think was for the Old Expanses.  My regular mail address may be useful
for this: Mark Leymaster, PoBx 2569, Boston, MA 02208.  Thanks


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-------- TML Message #687 --------

Archive-Message-Number: 687
Date: Wed, 8 Nov 89 21:34:46 PST
From: gazis@halley.arc.nasa.gov
Subject: Is Space Really the Final Frontier?



     There has always been a Frontier.

     What is the Frontier?  This question has many answers.  Some would
say that the Frontier is the place where civilization ends.  Others
would refer to physical obstacles such as mountains, deserts, or
for a starfaring civilization, the place beyond which there were no 
ready bases or fueling stations.  Still other folk, those of a morbid 
temperment, would define the Frontier to be the border between the
region where it is safe to travel and regions from which travellers
often fail to return.  But all of these definitions have one thing 
in common:

     Beyond the Frontier there is no law.

     Why, you may ask, is this so?  The answer is obvious.  Whatever 
its nature, be it border of civilization, a physical barrier, or the
boundary of a place where travellers routinely vanish, the Frontier 
represents a barrier to law enforcement as well.  Those charged with 
enforcing the law require a civilization in which to opperate.  They 
require bases and fueling stations.  They certainly need to stay alive.
Without these conditions, there can be no law enforcement.  And to
quote Jack Vance, "Law cannot reach where enforcement will not follow."
     A curious observation, you say, but one without relevance to my
game.  Perhaps so.  That is my very point.  I have followed the Nuclear
Controversy with some interest, and notice that many of you prohibit
or restrain the use of nuclear weapons through some reference to the
law.  This implies that adventurers opperate within the region where
law holds sway.  It implies that adventurers opperate INSIDE the 
Frontier rather than beyond it.

     My question is.  How many of you really believe or intend this
to be the case?  How many of you deliberately intend your players
to opperate inside the bounds of an all-encompassing civilization?
How many of you chose instead to force your players to devise their
own laws, to define their own moral code without recourse to or
dependance upon the strictures of their parent civilization?
     And what is the reason for your choice?

     To be fair, I should answer my own questions:
     In the Eight Worlds, the Frontier is defined by the orbital 
defense zones of the eight major worlds (Terra, Goa, San Vincento,  
The Plieades Federation, Great Belt, New Carina, Redstar, and 
Outback).  Outside this limited volume of space all is Wilderness.
There is no law except that which is enforced by coherent photons.
Pirates and raiders opperate with impunity.  Those sapients, vessels,
the prey of such.
     The major worlds do occasionally send forth their navies to
enforce some kind of order.  But these actions can rarely be
distinguished from the actions of the pirates and raiders they
purport to oppose ("Nice planet you've got there squire.  Be a
pity if anything happened to it.  You should join the New Carinan
Mutual Defense Alliance.")
     Matters were not always thus.  Legend tells of a time centuries
past when the entire Orion Arm flourished in peaceful prosperity
under the benign rule of the Terran Imperium.  But those days, if
they existed at all, are centuries gone.  The Empire was destroyed 
centuries ago, if it was ever more than a myth.

     I run such a campaign for two reasons.
     First, I have always been fascinated by the Wilderness.  I do
not wish to live there myself.  If I were to be suddenly transported 
to the Eight Worlds, my lifetime would probably be measured in minutes.  
But I enjoy exploring such an existance in the comfort and safety of 
my own living room.
     Second, a world without laws is a sort of moral mirror.  The
characters which opperate such a world, and to a certain extent
their players as well, must take responsibility for their own actions.
They have no one else to blame.  In the process they will eventually
confront themselves, and learn if they are truly good or truly evil.
     The results are often interesting...



For fun, gaming, and purple prose!

Paul R. Gazis                        
gazis@hal.arc.nasa.gov   or
gazis@hal.span.nasa.gov   or
gazis%hal.span@ames.arc.nasa.gov   or
something like that
(408) 736-0764 (h)


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-------- TML Message #688 --------

Archive-Message-Number: 688
Date: Thu, 9 Nov 89 00:44:01 -0500
From: (Mark Gellis) f3w@mentor.cc.purdue.edu
Subject: Nukes, characters, challenges....



I just read Chris's letter (he looks like a valuable addition to the 
group) and I was intrigued by his comments about the problems in keeping
players from getting bored.  I have the same problem sometimes because,
realistically, it's not that hard for a person who wants to become some
version of superman from doing so.

For example, one of my players, Tim, has put a lot of time and credits 
into building up his one weapon skill--Class II (rifles).  He has the
skill at +4, and he has taken advantage of all my special rules.  He
bought a custom laser rifle (very expensive, but it gives you an additiona
additional +2 to hit), AND he is using both a smart weapon system with
a biocontrol interface that hooks into his nervous system (another +2),
AND a skill chip hooked into a memory plug.  In effect, he has Laser Rifle
at +9.  (For those interested in these devices, read various cyberpunk
novels, especially Neuromancer, Count Zero, Schizmatrix, When Gravity
Fails, A Fire in the Sun, and Islands in the Net--they're all great 
novels in addition to providing some really nifty ideas for GM's).

Anyway, back to Tim.  Tim, knowing why it is important to NOT BE SEEN
bought a stealthed combat vacsuit (remember Predator?  A stealth suit
uses a wraparound videocell system that receives and then transmits
light hitting your body so you're almost invisible--the almost is a
big factor).  In daylight, people kind of notice the shimmer; at night,
you might as well be Sauron wearing the One Ring.  (Oh, yes, Tim got
the laser rifle stealthed too.)

Now all this cost about a million credits.  But Tim is pretty invincible
because he usually can't be seen, he's fast enough to get off the first shot
most of the time (especially when he's hidden), and he hits just about any-
thing he shoots at.  I don't mind too much.  I run a gameworld where if
you screw up in a gunfight, you die, but if you're smart in a gunfight, you
live (as it should be).  Still, unless I want to send someone as dangerous
or worse after Tim, what do I do?  I don't like using cheesy things like
"Oh, your stealth suit shorted out.  For no reason."

This long and rambling example, besides serving to offer a few ideas to
fellow GM's, if they want to use them, is dedicated to the question of:

   Once they get powerful, how do you deal with them without 
   just screwing them over?

My own solution is to let them become corporates or politicals.  The
problems of running a business (outwit your competition...catch those
industrial spies...deal with hostile--hey, an armed fleet approaching
your asteroid is about as hostile as it gets--takeover attempts) or
running a country (outwit our competition, I mean ideological opponents...
catch those spies...deal with hostile takeover attempts, I mean invasions
and rebels...is there an echo in here?) keeps people pretty busy.

One final note.  Just so everyone won't think all I do is try to make
my players miserable, I try to sometimes run just goofy adventures where
no one really gets hurt, even if they don't make much money.  If you want
a good "module" for this kind of thing--rent the Marx Brothers movie 
"Animal Crackers" and then let your players get invited to this kind of
party and be involved in finding the lost painting.  Even if you don't
want to do this, rent the movie, it's hysterical.  (For those who do
use the movie as a module, remember that Harpo Marx should never, NEVER
be given a loaded gun, no matter how often he "asks" to be allowed to
play with one.)

Take care all.  Enjoy.

     Mark


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-------- TML Message #689 --------

Archive-Message-Number: 689
From: (Jo Jaquinta) jaymin@maths.tcd.ie
Subject: Representation of Spheres
Date: Wed, 8 Nov 89 15:56:22 GMT


    Most of you seem to be discussing things over my head. Literially.
I am not so much concerned with generating huge number of stars but things
of planet sized and lower.
    The reccomended grid for worlds looks something like this:

               /\    /\    /\    /\    /\
              /  \  /  \  /  \  /  \  /  \      I.e. a 20 sided dice.
             /____\/____\/____\/____\/____\
            /\    /\    /\    /\    /\    /
           /  \  /  \  /  \  /  \  /  \  /
          /____\/____\/____\/____\/____\/
          \    /\    /\    /\    /\    /
           \  /  \  /  \  /  \  /  \  /
            \/    \/    \/    \/    \/

    You put hexes down the sides (one for each size of the world gives
you a constant scale) and pentegrams on the corners. This is really peachy
and plesant but has several drawbacks if you want to try to implement this
on a computer (If you don't trust me, I leave it as an exercise).
    Firstly I will outline what is needed for a computer representation:
    1) There must be a simple way to thread the sphere. I.e. we must easialy
be able to visit every point once and only once.
    2) We must be able to find all represented points withing a certain
radius of our subject point. E.g. I need all nodes within two of this one.
    3) We must be able to trace a diameter in a small number of cardinal
directions eventually reaching our starting point.
    4) It must be recursively definable. I.e. we must be able to increase
the resolution infinately.

    So what do we do?
    Hexes are nice, traditional and great for flat surfaces but a bit of a
bollox when you hit the corners. I think triangles are out best bet. Lets
work through the criteria in reverse order.
    (4) Recursively definable:
       /\               /\               /\
      /  \             /  \             /8_\
     /    \           / 2  \           /\2 /\
    /      \   ==>   /______\    ==>  /9_\/10\  ==> ...
   /        \       /\      /\       /\7 /\6 /\
  /    1     \     /  \ 1  /  \     /11\/1_\/14\
 /            \   / 3  \  / 4  \   /\3 /\5 /\4 /\
/______________\ /______\/______\ /12\/13\/15\/16\    no problem.
    (3) diameter.
    Always stand in a triangle with our backs to a base. If we go through
the left face, then with our back to that in the new triange go through the
right face repeatedly we will circumnavagate the sphere. Choosing which
base and wether to go left or right first gives us six directions.
    (2) find all points within a radius
    If you assume that an adjacent triangle is a triangle sharing
a base you have no problem and minimal difficulty on corners. A more
attractive way is to have any triangle which shares a vertex be one
unit away. This has rather more difficulties.
    (1) threading the sphere.
    I haven't been able to come up with an algorithmical way to do this.
It is, of course, trivial if one numerically orders the triangles. This
brings us to my mental block. To come up with a numbering system for
the triangles of the sphere that caters for the conditions above.
    What this boils down to is that the above scheme is mathematically
elegant it needs four things to make it usefull. (4) a way of uniquely 
identifying {preferably with an integer, or ordered pair} each triangle
element on the sphere. This numbering system must remain compatible as
the resolution is increased. (3) A function that when given a location
id and a direction, returns a location id of the next triangle along 
that diameter. (2) A function that is passed a location and returns
a fixed number of locations distance one from the given location. (1)
A function that given a locations returns another location such that
if continually called with the return value it will cycle through all
locations before returning.
    Is there a fresh mind out there that can see what I can't?

    			-- Jo Jaquinta


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-------- TML Message #690 --------

Archive-Message-Number: 690
From: (Jo Jaquinta) jaymin@maths.tcd.ie
Subject: GaelCon-89
Date: Wed, 8 Nov 89 15:57:19 GMT


    GAELCON-89 -- the first Irish International Games Competition

    Well for the participants it was a great success; financially it
was rather worse. My own little corner of it was the MegaTraveller
Role-Playing competition. We had planned for ten tables of eight
people with a terminal displaying library data on each table. Having
been roped into general organisation at the very end coupled with
hardware inconsistancies we only managed eight tables with sparodic
operation.
    Myself and the other two organisers (Lesley Grant & Oisin Murphy-
Lawless) put an awful lot of work into the scenario. In the end it
weighed in at 98 pages and 33,000 words. It was purely a role-playing
scenario. I.e. people were judged on how well they role-played. The
players were all playing doctors who had requisitioned space on a
luxary liner for a mission of mercy. All 41 NPCs of the ship were
detailed with loads of interaction. No personal objectives for the PCs
and no central plot.
    This had two effects. First you had the player that is used to
having paths lead out for them. The kind the referee has to lead around
by their nose. These were at a complete loss. They wandered around
provoking NPCs in a most undoctorlike fashion. Trying to make trouble
so "something would happen".
    Then you had the real role players. These had a field day. There was
a great variety in background amongst the NPCs and as we had play-tested
it ten times the referees were very familiar with them.
    If the whole scenario was played from day one to day five it would
probably take 18 hours. But then it was designed to be a 3.5 open ended
competition. If there are enough people interested (and there is the
space) I will upload them to the server.
				-- Jo Jaquinta

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-------- TML Message #691 --------

Archive-Message-Number: 691
Date: Thu, 9 Nov 89 10:10 EST
From: 09NILLES%CUA.BITNET@cornellc.cit.cornell.edu
Subject: Powerful players and nuke's


RE: nukes

Assuming players were to purchase nukes on one of the multitude of black
markets that exits in the Imperium.  What is to say that the equipment,
with which to detonate the nuclear explosive, actually works.  If they
get the nuclear weapon from some back water planet with a minimal
technology to even build the things, they may not have perfected a
detonator.  Or as in the movie "The Manhatten project", I think, where
the boy steals the nuclear matereal.  His detonater that he builds is
partialy ruined by the radiation.  I am not saying the radion of the
weapon it self would set it off or break it.  But what about the powerfull
magnetic feilds created by the powerplants and the engines?  What effect
might they have on the detonator?

re: Powerfull players

The equipment that powerefull players is VERY delicate.  For instance,
the FGMP-14 and -15 along with the PGMP-14 have a relatively unlimited
number of shots.  EXCEPT if you read the note below the chart in either
Striker or Mercinary(I forget which), but it says this is the case only
if the player or someone recharges the fusion power pack and does routine
mantinance once a month.  So if the players don't take care of their
equipment, it is bound to get aged and thus faulty.  Look at cars.  If
you don't take care of it, even the best cars around, they will wear down
and break without sceduled maintenace.  And then any breakdown will be
relativly predictable.  So in order to keep things in top condition, they MUST
take care of their equipment.  Why do you think the routine maint. is
sceduled on star ships once a year?

                 Dave

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   Nuke 'um Till They Glow
       Then Shoot Them in the Dark

   Money Talks.
       Mine Only knows how to say bye.


All opinions and material above is the responsibility of the originator.
Submissions: traveller@dadla.wr.tek.com, or uunet!dadla.wr.tek.com!traveller
Administrator: traveller-request@dadla.wr.tek.com (James Perkins)
The TML is made possible by facilities provided by Tektronix, Inc.

-------- End of TML Messages --------

