TDR reviewers, drives, etc

RE: TDR rules categories & help

While I don't think I can add much in the way of writing concrete rules, I'd be
happy to review rules submissions, and in general bounce ideas around.
Is there a TDR category for that, or are such a dime a dozen? :-)  I'm not up
on the lastest Traveller, but have good experience with 'classic' Traveller,
and designing homebrew rules systems.

RE: Survey list

You know, this is the first time that I've ever seen anything resembling a list
of who's who in the TML.  Don'cha think it would be nice to know a bit about
who's who?  who knows, maybe there are some Traveller types near me???

RE: TDR rules categories

Should we have rules dealing with world's TL as mentioned in the TCS question?
What's the chances of varying TL pieces of equipment actually working together?
In one of the Star Wars books, the Falcon's control system gets shot up, so Han
Solo cobbles together a 'fluidics' control system;  I thought it was laughable!

RE: TDR drives

In general, Traveller ships seem to have two or three types of drives: jump
drives, and maneuver drives, and perhaps gravitic drives.  The Jump drive is
used for interstellar travel, the maneuver drives are used for interplanetary
travel, and the gravitics drives are used to land the ship without damaging the
real estate.

I don't like having to have three drives, but they seem to be necessary.
Assuming that the maneuver drive is a reaction drive, you need some other sort
of drive to land without destroying the place.  Are there other ways to land
ships?  Are there reaction drives that are not destructive?  Some scenarios
have space ports have gravitic landing platforms, and scorched earth wilderness
landings.  I kind of like that.

If you have a gravitic landing drive, perhaps it's combined with the shipboard
gravity equipment, so that it's essentially free?  In any case, I'd like to be
able to design ships without gravity equipment.

I definitely don't like the idea of the maneuver drives being (anti)gravity
drives.  In my mind an antigravity drive has to have a nearby mass to work
against, and I question if antigrav vehicles should work further in space then
low orbit.  I'm sure there are ways to explain it away, such that the gravity
drive generates a gravity field, and the ship falls toward it, but for some
reason it goes against my grain.  It seems like pulling a rabbit out of a hat!
Does anyone else have such misgivings?

I like the idea of maneuver drives being reaction drives.  Traditionally
spacecraft have always had some kind of jets or exhaust, even the highest TL,
and I don't want to change that.  However, it seems that the physics doesn't
work, if I'm following the TML discussion correctly.

There are other possibilities for maneuver drives other then a reaction drive
or a 'rabbit out of a hat' drive, and I hope we can decide on one that fits for
TDR maneuver drives...

Discussion?

RE: TDR unified design rules

It's the only way to go!

RE: Combat systems

I like the idea of being able to figure out where a character has been hit, and
take that in account for damage, but such rules ***must*** be simple and
PLAYABLE!

RE: vehicle movement

I hope that TDR will use the MAYDAY vector movement rules, instead of the
'zones' gimmick use somewhere in Traveller...

Jim Baranski