Ladies and Gentlemen,
Send the kiddies out of the room please, I feel a tirade comeing
on...
Are they out? Good.
Dear friends,
While we have been merrily playing with our silly vehicle
contest, we have been totally outclassed. Completely, and
absolutely. By Whom, do you ask?
By the same makers as Shattered Ships of the Fighting
Imperium! THAT'S WHO! ARRRGH!!! I CAN'T believe *THIS* one!
They're INSANE! God DAMN IT! Dow was being FUNNY when he put in
a spacecraft powered by an internal combustion engine! THESE
Jokers put out an *OFFICIAL* one!
Assignment: Vigilante
The Laruusaliin Roughneck-Class Frontier Fuel Harvester
A TL 6 interplanetary fuel scoop ship.
Basically, the ship flies into a gas giant, scoops fuel, and
returns to orbit full of propane.
She has a displacement of 200tons and weighs 2300 tons (unloaded)
Now, when in the atmosphere of the gas giant here's how it
operates: Uses fuel scoops to pick up hydrogen in order to fill
a large parawing/gas balloon. It then travels around in the
atmosphere going through regions of the gas giant picking up
propane and other hydrocarbons from the atmosphere.
Ok, Now, the gas envelope is NOT RIGID. It is a few times the
size of the Hindenburg and it is NOT RIGID. Any guesses how long
such a blimp will last in the turbulent atmosphere of a GAS
GIANT? You know, the same gas giant's that tear your Armor=40
ship to shreds sometimes? Damn! The TL 6 airships *I* know of
got torn to pieces in the atmosphere of EARTH! Nevermind
something like JUPITER or SATURN! God Bless it! How do they
think this thing is gonna hold together!???
Right, now that you get the picture of how last these things are
gonna last, think about this one: These ships cost 103 Million
Credits a piece. Per trip they get 650 kiloliters of propane.
How many trips will it take for this thing to pay for itself?
637 trips (assuming 250Cr per kiloliter of propane) Nearly 2
years of daily operations. Any bets on if it is gonna survive
that long?
Ok, all these arguments are pretty damning, but as I said before,
it is powered by an *INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINE* WHERE does it
get the AIR to BREATHE? In vaccum? Well, you could say it is
using it's high performance rockets to keep it powered up at that
point. (They last 20 minutes) In the gas giant? Well, how much
oxygen do you get there? Not a whole lot! WHAT THE HELL DID
THEY THINK THEY WERE DOING?!?! There are no batteries listed, it
has to have some power plant churning away at all times. So
WHERE is the AIR coming from? Dow's design had the sence to
include Liquid Oxygen for his silly design. Nobody though of
that here!
Calm, calm, Calm. Right. Now what is the point of this ship?
Well it is supposed to give a low tech planet space capability so
that it can get the resources from a gas giant.
HOWEVER! In order to get the fuel back to the planet that needs
it, they need to have an X boat tender standing by. Remember the
old TL 15 x-boat tender? Well, Gee... If you've got one of THOSE
lying around, what the hell do you need a bunch of unreliable,
very expensive, and difficult to build TL 6 ships for?
Did common sence go on a holiday? JESUS CHRIST! What's next?
TL 3 steam powered starships?
On TOP of that stupidity, GDW totally FAILED to put Rob Dean's
name in AGAIN! DAMN IT! It's not like it's hard to SPELL!
I don't like this. I don't like this one little bit. Rob did
almost all the GOOD designs in Assignment Vigilante. But I
understand this is not Chuck Gannon's fault. At least he showed
good taste in choosing Rob's designs. I don't know if he is
responsible for the Roughneck, though. I KNOW it can't be Rob's.
You can let the kids back in now...
-------------
IMPERIAL LINES
Also included in the pack was a copy of Imperial Lines. An 8
page newsletter. Not bad over all. Not a whole lot of
substance. The largest article in there is on Foreven Sector.
(the one adjacent to the spinward Marches.) For those of you who
don't know, this is The Iakr sector that the story I've been
putting out has been set in. It is an interesting article in
that all they provide you with is a map. No planetary data, no
notes on the governments there. No list of UPPs. Nothing. They
apparantly decided that it is one sector which is going to be
left up to the individual Refs. They did give you a few planets
stats that had been published previously, (but they forgot a few
others that had been established in Foreven) (sigh) So, the
article as a whole doesn't help a whole lot. All you really get
is a sector map with some dots on it.
(There is a cryptic hint about strange goings on in the Zho
Consulate)
There is also an article on reducing starship fuel requirements.
Not bad, I've been thinking of writing that one up myself.
Essentually, they discuss powering down your fusion plant during
jump. Other than that, we've heard it all before.
Also included are the stats and skills for various Harrison Ford
movie characters.
There is also a short adventure/amberzone/76 Patrons type thingy
that they harken back to Lee's Guide to Interstellar Adventure
Vol 1. (I guess they were looking for something to make the old
collectors sit up and take notice) This one is pretty silly, but
not hilariously so.
Over all Imperial Lines looks like it could be a good newsletter
assuming it keeps going. HOWEVER: take a look at the
subscription rate. $8 per year. Now, that's a little more than
HALF the cost of Challenge per year. For that you get *4* 8 page
newsletters as opposed to 12 issues Challenge. Good buy! No WAY!
Come ON! The articles are DECENT, but $2 for 8 black and white
pages? Are we really THAT desparate?
(sigh) I am. I guess, I'll be a sucker and shell out my money.
Especially since someone said they might do something on the
Zhos. But I doubt that this one will sell much. I'll just keep
my fingers crossed and hope that the quality stays at a decent
level. If it decends, I won't be buying.
Scott 2G Kellogg