X-boats

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]