Ameer sez:
>I am still curious to see other people's interpretation of why the
>Sword Worlders are where they are now.
You've seen my explanation why they are where they are
location-wise. Why are they at "only" TL 9-12 when their neighbors have
High Stellar civilizations? How about this propensity for nuking each
other in civil wars when they aren't getting nuked by the Imperium?
Rebuilding from continual civil wars tends to drain the economy of
resources that could otherwise be used for education, research and
development. Early to Average Stellar is a high enough Tech Level that
you can make a comfortable place to live on *any* world, so there is no
necessity to drive advancement. One side effect of continual warfare in
the Real World (tm?) I would expect to see in the Sword Worlds: higher
military (personal & heavy weaponry, military vehicles) TLs than other
TLs. Sword World businesses may use computers not much more advanced than
our own, but *all* Sword World armies are probably equipped with nice,
shiny, lethal gauss rifles. (Imported from the Husqvarna factories on
Sacnoth, natch). Reserve units probably have good ACRs, at the *worst*.
(Mauser-Gram exports a rather nice one; so does Beretta of Narsil).
"2G" sez:
>The 100 hr inspection for aircraft (or annual) is a complete overhaul.
>Most airports have the capacity to perform a 100 hr on small aircraft.
>Say that a cessna is the equivalent of a small craft, that means
>virtually all starports have the capacity to overhaul smallcraft.
I hate to disagree with a man in his area of expertise, but the 100
hour inspection is *NOT* a complete overhaul. An overhaul is a complete
overhaul. Big difference in cost and legally required mechanical
certifications. Way back many years when my father owned a Navion, his
WWII training was sufficient to tear down the engine for annual inspection
- -- which means you open up every damn access panel in the plane and pull
every thing off the engine so the inspector can poke and peek and confirm
that all the parts are there in working order. Then you put all the
panels and parts back -- but nothing is replaced. An overhaul, on the
other hand, requires Certified Mechanics, and means taking the engine
apart and rebuilding it, if my memories are correct. The expense is such
that it is something to be avoided, usually by selling the plane before it
gets too close to requiring an overhaul.
IMHO, for starport equivalents, any airport with shops capable of
doing an engine overhaul would equate to a starport capable of doing an
annual overhaul: A or B. An annual inspection equivalent can be done by
the engineer on your crew, with the tools he better well have; legal
requirements might require a local or Imperial inspector to do the looking
over at a starport where the inspector had an office (none X or E, rare at
D).
>Ah, well, this is basically the stand I took in the beginning. There is
>not sufficient detail: A class 'A' port does not necessarily mean the
>presence of jump capable ship yards. A class 'B' port does not necessarily
>mean high traffic.
I disagree. Partially. I contend that a class A port must have
heavy traffic, and class B ports must have medium to heavy traffic, simply
to pay for the facilities present. Except in special cases, where someone
is willing to subsidize major facilities for other purposes, good
facilities *other than yards* will exist only where the traffic can
support them. Megacorporate shipyards may well exist wherever the builder
feels is convenient to construct ships; local shipyards will exist only on
worlds with enough spacegoing business that they can expect to sell ships
there. I consider megacorporate yards (like the LSP and General yards in
various places) to be an example of the "special case" cited above.
However, worlds with such yards should have TL equivalent to what's being
built.
However, I do concede that a place with a lousy starport could
have a lot of traffic. This should be a temporary condition; if there's a
lot of traffic, it can support better facilities, and someone will
probably build them. Or, poor facilities will discourage traffic, and the
volume will drop off. Hmmm. One could make a case for low traffic A & B
ports being similarly temporary conditions -- either the good facilities
will attract traffic, or lack of traffic to support the facilities will
cause them to be degraded thru lack of maintenance and support.
To generalize from this: world UPPs are snapshots (we all know
this). The less logical a particular UPP is, the more likely it is to be
a temporary condition. This kind of UPP should be revised by the Referee
as appropriate; what the PCs encounter, and what is published in the
update column of the Wall Street Journal (Library Data edition) will not
match the UPP in the Official Third Imperial Grand Survey.
>H Heavy: Vessels up to a million tons. Major worlds.
>M Medium: Vessels below 100,000 ton vessels.
>L Light: Vessels under 1000 tons. (Player type ships)
>O Occasion: Traffic rarely in system.
>Z Zero: No traffic in system. Vessels EXTREMELY rare.
What does size of the vessel have to do with how much traffic a
system sees? I personally think that a port that sees 120,000 Free
Traders a year rates a higher traffic rating than a port that sees one
100,000 ton bulk hauler a year. I suggest you rate traffic by Aggregate
Tons of ships (not cargo) rather than by tonnage of individual vessels.
Say:
H Heavy: over 100 million aggregate tons of shipping a
year.
- typical year for Trin or Terra.
- The Corridor Fleet passes through once.
M medium: 10 million - 100 million tons a year.
- typical year for Efate.
- A CruRon patrols here once a month.
L Light: 100,000 - 10 million tons a year.
- one Tigress a year on patrol
- 1 light merchant (200-400 tons) a day.
O Occasional: 1000 - 100,000 tons a year.
- One free trader a month.
- One Naval Supply Ship a year.
Z Zero: less than 1000 tons a year.
-"A free trader every other month. Maybe."
A while back, Catie asks:
>How do make super-dense, by the way?
Use gravitics to grow maximum strength nickel-iron crystal
lattices, like may exist in the upper layers of a neutron star's crust?
Use superheavies and handwaving? Do bizarre things with gravitics and
ceramics? Or gravitics and polymers? Use meson-based atoms? I dunno. I
accept that advanced technology could create something tougher than
single-crystal metals without knowing the details.
I tend to reserve degenerate matter and meson atoms for
explanations of Monadium; they are too high tech and too tough to be
Superdense. (BTW, degenerate matter is Really Neat Stuff -- and its
characteristics match almost all the observed characteristics of Monadium
except one).
-- Cynthia
P.S. Who is/has been running Traveller/MegaT campaigns set in the Domain
of Deneb area from the close of the Fifth Frontier war until whenever? I
have some questions I would like to ask you via e-mail. (I assume you
are, Mike Metlay, Rob Dean....)