I think this is a good idea. Suggestions:
(1) TDR is the name to go with. GNU is out, because it is registered and
belongs to the Free Software Foundation. (Yup, it's true, Richard will get on
our asses -- I mean Richard S.)
(2) As for "physics problems": I have to laugh. How, pray tell, do you justify
hand waving? Look, the Jump Drive is necessary for the game to work, and if
you insist that all messages are carried by starship courier, then the game
works well and balance of play is preserved. I'm not sure why people are
flaming about Jump-7 ships. As for the maneuver drives and such -- go ahead,
fix them if you must. I'm a physics major, I could probably do some
computations in my copious free time and see how plausible some of these things
are.
(3) I am very much in favor of making this system work with the currently
designed MegaTraveller universe. I think the shattered Imperium is a great
setting for adventures, and I like the alien races that are covered by MT
supplements.
(4) I suggest that TDR be written using TeX or LaTeX, since these text
formatters are (a) free, (b) nearly universal [if you don't have TeX or LaTeX,
you can get one or both from a variety of ftp sites for almost any machine,
including your garden-variety PC], (c) EMACS has a TeX mode built in, (d) TeX
and LaTeX are particularly good at formatting publication-quality text and at
formatting any kind of tables and mathematical formulas, both of which are
copiously present in Traveller. I would even be willing to take tables that
people typed in and "TeX-ify" them. Since previewers are available for just
about any machine, you can run your TeX document through TeX and then run the
previewer to see how good or bad it looks. Granted, we could also use
MacIntrash WYSIWYG word processors, but let's face it, this short-circuits a
lot of UN*X users who would be using their resources. Besides, there is a TeX
package for the Mac called TeXtures. It's quite good. (It's not free, but
that's what happens when you have to majorly rewrite software to run under a
fascist operating system.)
Well, that's what I have to add to the discussion. Now all we have to do is
get organized.
Robert P. Poole [email removed]
[address removed] MIT Course VIII
311B Bexley Hall "We make Idols of our concepts, but
[address removed] wisdom is born of wonder."
-- St. Gregory the Illuminator