Pournelle's Alderson Drive is nice but the star systems in TRAVELLER are
not ALL the star systems in each HEX. Each HEX represents a large area
and the dominant system is supposed to be the only really useful one there.
There is no guarantee that the PADrive will get you to ANY TRAVELLER system
as currently mapped. Again, this can be fitted into TNE as a drive
technology but one that got dropped because it wasn't as useful as JUMP
drive even though it was better and faster. Perhaps the IMPERIUM actually
uses the equivalent of PADrive communications networks but it would wander
thru all sorts of uninhabited systems.
Think of all the exploring that can be done in one HEX.
It sounds like the rules will be generic to any space culture but as GM you
discard what you don't want. If you want the IMPERIUM then simply CUT
and PASTE to make it. If you want MT then simply CUT and PASTE.
The problem as I see it is that the IMPERIUM had inbuilt boundaries which
prevented it from evolving easily into a new game system. What GDW are
trying to do is revamp the BASICs so that they can expand the system into
other markets. It's only us players with experience and knowledge of
what the early IMPERIUM and MT were like that are going thru culture
shock.
Bruce... [email removed]