: From: Adrian Hurt [email removed]
: Subject: Re: potential energy in the Traveller (and other) universe
: To: [email removed]
:
: You wrote:
: > Grav
: > drives must use as much energy as the difference in gravitational
: > potential energy. Jump drives cannot jump to a higher point of
: > potential energy without a commensurate cost. By the way, this
: > is a very good reason why jumps can never be into open space,
: > but only into a star system, and wouldn't crash you into a star
: > or planet.
:
: Perhaps you can answer a question which has bothered me for a while,
: about potential energy. Potential energy is based on your distance
: from a body exerting a gravitational pull, isn't it? So how much
: energy do I have from being at a height of about 4 light years from
: Alpha Centauri? If a ship jumps to a point halfway between here and
: Alpha Centauri, it has a lot of potential energy by being at a great
: distance from Earth and the Sun, but has less potential energy from
: Alpha Centauri than it did when it was in our solar system.
Quite true. The ship gained potential energy w.r.t. Sol and lost
potential energy w.r.t. Alpha Centauri. It also gained and lost
potential energy from a number of other stars and various celestial
bodies. Since gravity drops off with the square of distance, the
energy differences w.r.t. Sol and Alpha Centauri should (I think)
dominate the equation, though, especially if you assume a roughly
uniform distribution of stars in the vicinity. This might not be
valid near a nova cloud or black hole or quasar or similar such
phenomenon, I guess.
: > o Don't make Traveller or MegaTraveller stuff obsolete. Provide for
: > conversions to the new system. Where things are changed in the
: > new system, don't make them so different that you can't simply
: > "fake it" with old characters/designs/etc.
:
: This, of course, is going to be a real neat trick, given that you want
: the physics violations of Traveller and MegaTraveller fixed.
True, but I don't think Traveller was THAT broken. Some of the
stats might have to be altered or given further constraints.
The physics violations may not be as much of a problem as you
think, though. For ships, I'd settle for having all of the
types of equipment and weaponry carried over. Then, if I'm
not too concerned with the physics behind what's happening
(I know that my ship is capable of a two parsec jump, carries
five triple beam laser turrets, and is capable of four G
acceleration from rest, for instance), I can go with what
I've got. If there are enough example ships, I should be
able to guess at values that I didn't already know (such as
damage points or batteries bearing, if these systems change).
If I am concerned with everything being correct in the new
system (or matching physics better, or whatever), then I'm
going to want to convert the ship to the new system anyway.
It's still important that I have a starting point, though.
Characters are similar, but a bit more difficult. I should
be able to look at an old Traveller character and know what
his stats and abilities roughly are in the new system,
without being forced to convert the character by hand. This
could mean, for instance, doubling ability scores and adding
three to stats (as a rough approximation). Again, if you
are converting characters to the new system, this is probably
not sufficient, but is a good starting point.
: > o Does anyone else out there like the 6-sided dice? I always
: > identified Traveller with 6-siders and the 2d6 bell curves used
: > for everything.
:
: Me too. I'd settle for xD6 instead of 2D6, because then the piles of
: dice I've accumulated for use with Star Wars will have another use.
I'd settle for xD6 also. Years ago, a friend of mine and I
invented a system for game based on TRON (right when the movie
came out). We used 4d6-4 (or 4 dice labelled 0-5) for every
roll, in order to get a steep bell curve from 0-20. From the
word I've been hearing, however, it seems like it's already
been decided to use d20's.
Actually, if you want realistic rolls, you should provide for
open-ended die rolls. For example, use a d12 numbered from
0-11, where 11 means roll again and add 10, and 0 on the first
roll only means roll again and subtract from 0. This makes it
possible for anyone to succeed or fail tremendously at any
task.
I think it's a matter of taste when it comes down to it. I
prefer good old 2d6, but would live with a d20 roll.
If GDW decides to use d20, however, they should NOT make the
low rolls mean success. People naturally tend to think of
high rolls as success. IMHO, although I remember somewhere
(was it the TML?) where a study/survey was made and they
found out the same thing.
: --
: "Keyboard? How quaint!" - M. Scott
:
: Adrian Hurt | JANET: [email removed]
: UUCP: ..!ukc!cs.hw.ac.uk!adrian | ARPA: [email removed]
:
Jerry Williams ([email removed])