Alot of TidBYTES...

[Mea culpa, I reformatted this message so that words weren't broken over line
boundaries.  Guess I should've become a writer rather than a programmer, huh?
- - -- James]

Fellow Travellers,
I am in need of your thought provoking input on a number of MT questions.  Let
me state that I am using the first editon/printing of the MT rules, thus some
of these "problems" may be solved and I don't know about them.  Now, where to
begin...

1) Personal Combat - I've resently started running a traveller campaign and
this is the first time that I have used the new MT rules.  I've worked through
all the changes that have occured and thought I was ready to move into the new
age of traveller, then I had to deal with personal combat.  Traveller was kind
to PC with the combat system before, But NOW...  I can't kill anybody without
High Energy Weapons...

I try to keep the military related gear out of my players hands... that gear
is for the active duty types.  They went along with that fine, so everyone got
cloth armor ship's jumpsuits...  No problem, until the first firefight.  Since
I keep the lid on Military gear, most opponents have lower level stuff too...
That when we found out that SMGs,Shotguns and Advance Combat Rifles CANNOT
penetrate even "lowly" Cloth armor.  I was stunned.  Topping that feat is the
TL14 Vacc suit which will stop anything short of a Gauss Rilfe, ARL or LAG AP
rounds...  Even when you hit with these, most damage will be disapated...  I
can see the headlines now...  MAN IN VACC SUIT TAKES ROCKET TO THE CHEST AND
LAUGHS.  Now I can live with all the hand waving and scientific slips that
occur for game sake, but NO DAMAGE without Penetration...  I know the 10%
rule, but thats for uncovered areas only... a vacc suit covers all...

Slug thowers are and will be one of the most widely used weapons.  Kinetic
energy is the easiest way to convey killing power.  Defensive technology will
keep pace.  This all equates to a police nightmare.  Thank god my players are
not all running around in combat armor or battle dress.

2) Personal hit locations - If we start to consider partial armor covering, as
the 10% rule seems to, why not use a hit location chart ala Aftermath.  I'm
interested in your oppinions on this, if you use a system and how you work it
out.

3) Rates of Fire - Did they forget about this all together? Sure there is the
rapid fire rules, but you empty your clip and the auto fire rules cover only
ful ly automatic fire.  I'm sorry...  I may not be a marksman but I have fire
both pistols and long guns before.  With a 9mm Barretta (a traveller
autopistol) I can aim and fire off 2-3 rounds in a 6 second period of time
accurately.  At this rate it would take 30 seconds to empty my clip, but I am
firing at multiple targets also.  A submachine gun only firing 1,3 or 30
rounds in a combat round...  I don't understand.  With this system an antique
Blunderbuss (one player has one), a revolver, an autopistol, a SMG, an ACR and
A VRF Guass Gun all fire ONE round every 6 seconds.  What was Marc Miller
thinking about here...

4) Starship Hijacking - with the new rules about ship computers, this option
becomes almost impossible.  No real critisism, but I would like to here how
you pull this caper off.

5) Starship combat rounds - 20 minutes... ummmmm...  I'm sure that alot could
be occuring in that time.  I realise that the distance can be so great, but
modern naval combat takes place at much longer ranges than that of WW2 combat
and things move faster now.  I use 1 minute rounds and throw the movement
scales out the window.  I'd like to know what you do.

6) High Tech Gear - I've got a number of player's reading GURPS Ultra tech and
asking for conversions.  I agree with most of the stuff, but some things that
make sense just don't work.  For example, construction cement.  I figure that
by TL 15 there would be some form of quick drying polymer that would be used
as material for roads, walls, etc. that is as strong, if not stronger, than
concrete.  Now my players want to use this stuff as bulkheads in there ship.
If the get boarded by bad guys (good guy to me), they just start pouring this
stuff down the halls to the bridge and engineering, thus sealing out the
enemy.  How do you deal with logical technical advances that could throw the
system out of whack.  Its the traveller equivelent of the +5 Holy avenger/rune
blade/sword of sharpness.  ..  HHEEELLLLPPPPP....  See reference to question 4

7) Imperial Law Level - As I have stated, I keep the military gear in the
hands of the military when and where ever possible.  I know that there are law
levels for the member worlds, but what if any, law level do you aply to
imperial space.  I know that every imperial marine force commander has
nightmares about garrisoning a starport that allows civilian merchants to arm
their security men with battle dress and FGMP-15s.  And should civilian ships
be allowed to mount meson/spine mount weapons?

8) True Speculative Cargo - The trade and commerce section deals with
speculators buying and selling cargo, but the cargo bought is only supposed to
go to the world where the ship is going.  With this in mind, the minimum
resale price any good merchant captain will get is 90% of its selling price (2
on dice+4 Broker +any Bribery).  What happend to the "What do you mean, you
don't want 10,000 snow cone machines... this is a desert planet you idiot".
I've got players wanting to buy TL15 household items, with replacement parts,
to sell on any given TL11 -14 world.  How do you deal with this problem.

I must state that my campaign is running in 1113 pre-rebellion.  I would like
to see TDR replies.  Enough rambling...

Mike Finn
[email removed]