StutterWarp and other stuff

Derek Wildstar writes:
>Corran J. Webster [email removed] writes:
>>   Indeed, why does it [stutterwarp] need to be FTL?
>
>It doesn't; if carefully done, a "slow" stutterwarp will work; it can be
>limited to sublight speeds, or to FTL speeds that are far below that of
>jump drives.  As a first cut, try dividing the speeds generated by Star
>Cruiser or 2300AD by 10 and see what happens.

You can attack this from both ends.
  - Fudge StutterWarp to be less powerful, AND/OR
  - Change the TRAVELLER JUMP scale from 1 hex=1 parsec to 1 hex=10 parsecs.
    (I don't think that such a change would cause too much trouble and
     it could open up the rest of the universe for 3D exploration)


Brad writes:
>In the design sequence, it is assumed that a vessel will have to defeat
>  1G of gravity in order to begin moving.  Basically, this ignores
>  the concepts of aerodynamics.  For vertical take off and landing,
>  a craft is capable of doing without a 1+ G of acceleration.
>  This is what taxiing was developed to avoid, and means that
>  anyone trying to design a grav-bike or other vessel doesn't have
>  to use so much power to produce thrust, thus producing cheaper
>  and smaller vessels.

I believe that this was addressed in GURPS SPACE but I don't have the
book with me.  They gave a streamlined ship (ie lifting surfaces) some %
bonus on G rating so a less than 1G rated drive could lift from a 1G
planet.

Actually, GURPS SPACE sounds a lot like what GDW are trying to write.
A generic TRAVELLER rule set that can be used in any space game/universe.


Steve writes:
>>    Why not have it merely as a superior form of m-drive? This would solve the
>>problem that was mentioned of trying to get the 2300AD starship combat system
>>without the massive effect on the imperial universe.
>
>There is a problem with this idea:  piracy.  Piracy is an idea well loved
>by GDW and most Traveller GMs, and stutterwarp will do bad things to it.
>Consider that, even with no FTL, a stutterwarp ship can reach the 100-
>diameter limit in about three minutes.  This is going to make it EXTREMELY
>difficult for pirates to make a (dis)honest living.  After all, even if their
>ships are stutterwarp as well, that still leaves them only three minutes to
>detect, close to weapon range, and disable a target before it jumps away.
>And assuming the pirate was a miracle worker who could DO this, then he finds
>himself only three minutes from the nearest Naval vessel in orbit around the
>world his target just left.  So now he has to LOOT the ship within three
>minutes, after defeating it in a fight within three minutes.

The simplest solution to this would be to slow down StutterWarp in-system
and change the 100 diameter rule to 1,000.  You could really complicate
this by having StutterWarp not work at all within a certain range of a
planet and force use of standard TRAVELLER in-system drives.

Come to think of it, you will need them anyway because (someone said earlier)
StutterWarp doesn't alter your basic real-space speed and vector so you will
need some way to match velocity and vector with any planet you want to visit.
Would someone with the StutterWarp rules care to check how they currently do
this.

The more I try to convince myself that StutterWarp can fit into TRAVELLER
the more I find myself shaking my head and wondering why we should bother
fudging both systems to make them fit together.

Put simply, StutterWarp is designed for 3D flits from system to system and
it has a 2D in-system battle format that everyone seems to like; while JUMP
Drive is a 2D inter-system transport mode with limitted in-system combat
mechanics which people would like to see improved.

Perhaps something completely new is needed which combines the good points of
both systems in one (?) Drive which won't significantly conflict with how we
have been role playing these items.

JUMP Drive seems fine the way it is but the in-system stuff should be tuned
to work like StutterWarp Combat does but not with StutterWarp Drives.  Simply
introduce an in-system combat system that uses the TRAVELLER in-system Drives
with the same basic mechanics as the StutterWarp system while maintaining
appropriate scales.  Personally, I don't like having to use energy beams
on _all_ combat.  I prefer to have a nice meaty missile hit rather than some
arcade style mind-in-the-missile shoot-em-up with lasers or det-missiles.

Also, from what I've heard about the ship design system for 2300AD they've
already designed themselves into a corner with their 0-9 screens and
armour already being at maximum for some Kafer ships; where do you go from
there.

That's enough from me, catch you later.

Bruce...       [email removed]