Yet more ramblings...
Scott Kellog writes:
>Strange offer fer ya:
>In prepping for the PBEM and all things Trav and Travellerish,
>I've been doin' a little research on wolf behavior in the wild:
>trying to get a better handle on role-playing Vargr by looking
>at the social interaction of their ancestors. Admittedly, the
Funny thing. Once I carefully delineated the personality of
an off-the-wall AD&D character who was a wolf who had the power to
change into a man, and was reasonably intelligent. I based his behavior
on what I knew of wolves, and you know what? About half-way thru,
I realized that his personality was almost identical to that described
for the Vargr. I guess GDW didn't do half-bad after all in creating
the Vargr...
Eric Edward Moore writes:
>After all this talkingg about how freight doesn't pay I started
>playing with the trade and commerce rules. It finally occured to me
>that the profit on freight should be close to the profit on cargo. If
>not, then these things are money machines (but not for the owners).
<stuff omitted>
That is why Steve once pointed out that the real profit will be
in shipping spec trade freight on someone else's ship, so no one would
build ships without some kind of subsidy, because you make less money
flying the ship and conducting spec trade than you do staying home and
sending it on someone else's ship. In the Real World, freight prices
would go up until some kind of equity between supply and demand was
established. In the Imperium, however... (see below).
>If however we raise the price of freight, this will go away. As long
>as freight isn't competetive with trade, people will be able to make
>lots of money shipping goods as freight. If everybody wanted to do
>this, the price of freight would go up.
Except for one thing: based on the fixed prices in the game, and
other background information on how the Imperium fixes commerce to favor
itself and the megacorps, I assume that the freight & passenger prices
are fixed by Imperial Law.
>Seems easier to me to fix the trade and commerce rules than to hack
>the spaceship rules to make only merchant ships cheaper....
I like cheaper ships and low fixed commerce prices; other GMs
might like expensive ships and variable (higher) commerce prices. With
higher commerce costs and more expensive ships, the effect on your universe
will be to encourage worlds to be self-sufficient and to cut interstellar
traffic to a minimum. Minimum would tend to be military and paramilitary
and very high-priced commercial traffic to outposts that can't support
themselves. In such a case, commercial traffic will almost certainly be
in the hands of big corporations; very profitable, but not enough to go
around for the would-be free traders, even if they can afford to buy a
ship in the first place. Not much room for PCs as free traders or
others driving independent ships around space. In fact, the picture looks
much like 2300AD, as far as interstellar traffic goes.
With cheaper ships and variable commerce rates, which I mean to
try out come Hard Times, commerce rates for the established categories
(standard freight, high,middle,low passengers) will probably go up for
ships that are barely making a profit now, and come down for those that
are raking it in hand over fist. I also plan on new, low-end categories
to appear: steerage -- more expensive than low berth, much less expensive
than middle passage -- but what you get is a bunk and a communal fresher.
I expect steerage to replace low berth, if low berths are no longer
required
by regulation, because low berth is the least profitable use of 0.5 tons
of ship space on the list. With steerage, you don't need to pay a medic
to decant 'em, and you can cram in a *lot* more bunks than staterooms.
With cheaper ships and low fixed prices, I think the picture remains
the same as that assumed by most Traveller scenarios: lots of interstellar
trade & traffic, lots of opportunities for PC shipowners. Ships that
can't make a profit under the fixed prices simply won't be built.
Scott "2G" Kellogg writes:
>While the hull is the limiting size of the antenni, it seems to me that
you
>could spread out the individual recievers out over the hull such that you
>could fit several arrays onto the same size hull. Thus, once you exceed a
>certain hull size you could fit as many interstellar range arrays on there
>that you want. That size might not be 100 tons, once the hull size hits
>that limit you can pack on as many sensor arrays as you want. You could
>just move each one of your recievers over a few centimeters on the outside
>of the hull and then you could install 2 such arrays.
Good point. How about amending my rules to require 1 hardpoint per
range band beyond planetary for the longest ranged sensor array, booms et
al
same as before?? For example, if you had
ActEMS=Far Orbit, PassEMS=Substellar, ....
this sensor suite would require 5 hardpoints (or one boom) instead of 6.
Scott Kellogg also pointed out once that the folks at Challenge don't
appear
to "prep" their scenarios before publishing them. Frankly, the MegaTrav
people at both GDW and Digest Group have provided ample evidence that they
have never heard of the term "blind play-testing" or don't know what it is
for if they have heard of it. Since the publisher has failed to reality-
check (or sanity-check) his published scenarios, it behooves GMs to read
the
stuff with a VERY critical eye. In the interests of TML GMs who don't have
time to pick apart that Challenge scenario with a fine-tooth comb before,
say, the weekend game, I am volunteering Steve to post some of his reviews
and analyses that he has been verbally relaying to me for the last ten
years. Bug him until he posts them.
- -- Via DLG Pro v0.991
[email removed]