Xboats (again), GDW, Barbarians, and stuff

A thread of 2 messages, 28 March 1990 to 3 April 1990, in the order they were sent.

#1156 Xboats (again), GDW, Barbarians, and stuff

Bob Mahoney · 28 March 1990

[A quick note -- I'll be away from Thursday through Tuesday this weekend
on vacation in Seattle, so I won't be able to answer any messages until
I get back.  The list software should carry on normally, though --
James]

Well, now that we are "digested", there doesn't seem to be much point in
separating messages by content, so engage your ramble screens...

- ---

No one ever answered my question about the costs to characters of using X-boat
communication.  (I was deeply hurt)  To recap:  "What is the cost of sending a
message to a friend several parsecs distant, and what procedures do you use in
your campaigns?"  (You aren't letting them do it for *free*, are you?)

- ---

This weekend, ignorant barbarians entered my car and stole my suitcase full of
Traveller gear, along with less important stuff like my driver's license and
checkbook.  (a pox upon their houses!)  Lucky for me, the large words involved
caused the criminals to dump the Traveller books in the woods not far away from
my house, which I found the next day.  (Saved!)

I did have a few frantic moments, though, and I called GDW to see how much of
the out-of-print stuff could still be had.  (Thanks again to those of you who
helped me get this stuff in the first place!)  I was a little suprised to have
Marc Miller answer the phone, and he was real helpful.  He offered to handle my
order himself, saying he knew where some of what I needed was gathering dust.
Real nice, you know?

The cool thing about all this is that I don't have to balance my checkbook this
month...   (For a moment there I thought I was off the hook for my much-delayed
TJ-Transport deck plans, but I guess you have to take the good with the bad.)

- ---

I have a copy of the "Vilani & Vargr" Aliens module.  I like it.  There are
very, very helpful sections for each race, giving a couple of pages of
excellent roleplaying examples for each.  Also, non-human races are completely
illustrated (yes, a Vargr bikini would be silly).  There are nice examples of
Vargr starship technology- maybe 6 ships, with stats.  There are also deck
plans for the much-feared Corsair.  Pretty ok product.  I found the Vargr more
interesting than I thought I would, and the Vilani less so.  (IMHO)

Are there release dates for the rest of the series?

Does anyone have any first-hand information on GDW's "Fighting Ships", or DGP's
"The Black Duke"?

- ---

- -Bob Mahoney              [email removed]

(Beware of wandering, illiterate hordes in this area.)

#1173 X-boats

Adrian Hurt · 3 April 1990 · reply to #1156

Bob Mahoney writes:
> No one ever answered my question about the costs to characters of using X-boat
> communication.  (I was deeply hurt)  To recap:  "What is the cost of sending a
> message to a friend several parsecs distant, and what procedures do you use in
> your campaigns?"  (You aren't letting them do it for *free*, are you?)

Here is what I charged:

Per page of text:	Cr10
Per page of picture:	Cr20

Civilian cipher:	*5
Military cipher:	*10

Distance:		*(1 + log(no. of jumps))

The old Supplement 12, "Forms And Charts", gave two forms for X-boat messages.
IS Form 6 was for text, IS Form 7 was for images.  So a Form 6 costs Cr10, and
a Form 7 costs Cr20.  Both forms say "The message/image will be optically
sensed and transmitted to the addressee above" and also had entries for date
of preparation, addressee and destination.

"Civilian cipher" is a fairly simple code, really only useful against casual
inspection.  Its best use is against nosey postmasters.  "Military cipher" is
more secure, and difficult (but not impossible) to crack. However, if the
client can prove to the IISS that the message was decoded by unauthorised
persons, they get their money back and the IISS changes its code.  Unscrupulous
senders could try to fake "proof", but the IISS checks claims quite thoroughly.
Some money is lost that way; it is covered by the higher cost of the more
secure cipher, and the money-back guarantee is one way of detecting leaks.
"Unauthorised persons" doesn't include Imperial authorities.  Never mind
morality here; there's no point in the IISS guaranteeing security against
them - in fact, to do so is probably illegal.

The "log" in the distance factor is base 10.  Thus, 1-9 jumps has a factor of
1; 10-99 jumps has a factor of 2; etc.  The number of jumps includes the
scout/couriers which may be involved at either end.

So, to send this message (3 pages, text only) up to 9 jumps away (enough for
most purposes) using civilian cipher (don't want it read by USENET, do we :-)
costs 3 * 10 * 5 * 1 = Cr150.

The time between sending and receiving is worked out as follows:

Per X-boat jump:	7 days
Per scout/courier jump:	4D days (minimum 7 days)
Miscellaneous transition delays (calculated for each jump):
			2D - 6 days (minimum 0 days)

Assuming an X-boat is ready, there is no delay at either end of its jump.  All
its mail is dumped into the tender's computer and re-assigned to other boats
within the hour.  There may be a delay involved if no X-boat going the right
way is available, or if the tender is somewhere else, or if any of hundreds of
other minor delays crop up.  Scout/couriers aren't always present; in fact,
the message almost always has to wait for one to arrive.

This all assumes, of course, that everything is working as it should be.  It
is up to the referee to deal with the effects of the civil war.

 "Keyboard? How quaint!" - M. Scott

 Adrian Hurt			     |	JANET:  [email removed]
 UUCP: ..!ukc!cs.hw.ac.uk!adrian     |  ARPA:   [email removed]