Mark F. Cook · 7 November 1990 · reply to #1704
YAY-YAASSS!!
> Rob and Dow Reider have made some much-needed corrections and simplifi-
> cations to the vehicle rules.
Really? Did I miss these? I don't remember them.
> Dow and I are looking into replacing the
> utterly worthless and nonsensical trade and commerce rules with better
> ones,
(best Madeline Kahn accent): "Well, it's about time!!" (those of you
who have seen the movie 'City Heat' will no doubt recognize the quote.)
I've been beating my head against a wall trying to differentiate freight
from speculative cargo, and I'm about really to head for the liquor cabinet.
> and I'm rolling up my sleeves (with the possible assistance of Dow
> and Paul Reilly, a General Relativist in my Trav group who will probably
> join the TML soon) and fixing the glaring physics errors that make so
> much of Traveller starship design difficult to swallow, without harming
> the game balance too badly. (no Jump-7's folx)
Good!
> I'm probably going to see
> if I can talk Iain Fogg and Mark Cook into helping me redo the weapons
> skills system in a convincing manner, and I'd like to tackle the combat
> system at some point and add a bunch more weapons to the canonical list....
Well, I (for one) feel flattered at the offer, not to mention keenly
interested. I accept.
Actually, as you may have guessed (based on earlier TML postings), my
weapon designs and overall combat system bear little resemblance to
standard MT. I find that the RTG Cyberpunk "Friday Night Firefight"
comes closer to real life than any other combat system I've seen (Just
ask anybody who's been shot at and had to shoot back, then argue with
me about 'realism'.)
> It may even turn out that the existing Traveller Universe will be no good
> for the resulting rules, in which case (sigh) I'll just have to create a
> new one. But hopefully the end result will be a rules set that one can use
> and not feel vaguely cheated by in one respect or another.
Assuming that we constrain ourselves to the Jump-6 limit, I can see no
reason why the existing Shattered Imperium wouldn't be amenable to almost
ANY rules re-write we'd care to make.
> Please post to the TML if you'd like to see a Gnu Traveller,
Definitely.
> and if so what rules you'd like to see fixed,
Well, IN ADDITION to all the ones mentioned above, I'd like to see a
re-write of the aircraft design rules in COACC. Scott Kellogg has
already pointed out how ludicrous the aircraft displacement values are.
Also, the robot rules need to be re-written, or at least greatly enhanced.
In the sections under locomotion (for example), no mention is made of
top speed. I also can't find any rules which detail how long a given
power supply will last, only how much power it puts out.
> whether you'd be willing to write or help write new rules,
Absolutely.
> and whether or not you'd be interested in a new Universe to run them in.
Well, only if it's as rich and detailed as the current Shatterd Imperium.
I don't worry about rules too much (what I don't have, I can fudge), but
a detailed, internally-consistant history is a LOT of work!
> (Also, the Gnu people will probably get mad if we keep using that term,
> so we could use a catchy title for this... GigaTraveller? Nah.)
How about TRAVELLER++. :-)
(If you're not a C programmer and don't get it, never mind.)
Mark F. Cook
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