Sorry if this has already been posted before..
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Now, on to something more important: STUTTERWARP.
So far, opinion is running about four-to-one against incorporating
it into the Traveller universe, and about 100% against incorporating
it as a retrofit (i.e. "it was always there, you just didn't notice it.")
These are two separate issues, and let me talk a little bit about both
of them.
The two issues are 1) whether we should add stutterwarp to the Traveller
universe, and 2) IF SO, how to do so with the least damage to continuity.
Is it easiest to believe that this new drive system was recently
introduced to the neighborhood, or is it easier to rewrite history (as
DC Comics did, I guess, a while back with their Infinite Earths series)?
Issue 2 impacts only established players, as new players won't know the
difference. Therefore, when existing players say unanimously that it
should not be a rewrite of history, that carries the argument.
Stutterwarp, *if* introduced to the Traveller universe in TNE,
will be a technological innovation which post-dates the assassination
of Strephon.
Now, issue number 1. Why introduce stutterwarp at all?
It seems to me that stutterwarp does a better job than does a simple
delta-vee model of replicating squadron and fleet battles as they have always
been described in Traveller literature. Even High Guard and Trillion Credit
Squadron's abstract maneuver systems produced combat exchanges which
never struck me as the sort of things which would result from a
delta-vee system. This is because Traveller's inspiration for
ship-to-ship combat has always been a surface naval model, with lines
of battle trading broadsides and so forth. This is, not coincidentally,
the classic science fiction model as well. A delta-vee maneuver system,
however, produces combat situations which bear no resemblance to
that surface naval analogy at all, and which are much closer to
those found in aerial dogfights.
If I were doing this from scratch, I would have commercial ships
rely on delta-vee for maneuver, thus leaving you with a fun
ship-to-ship delta-vee combat system for the small stuff.
Stutterwarp (probably because of expense, and the fact that it's not
as efficient a way to get from star to star) would be used almost
exclusively by purpose-built warships. From a game point of view,
this makes larger actions (say half a dozen to a dozen ships per
side) very playable, while that is much less true with a
delta-vee system. From a game world point of view, it means that
REAL warships run rings around civilian ships when it comes to
in-system combat, a very nice distinction I think, and fleet actions
play out the way we have always described them in the Traveller
literature.
So what do you think? Nothing has been finalized yet about
stutterwarp in the final version.
Frank Chadwick
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