Yiklerzdanzh

[email removed]
Someone asked recently whether anyone was adventuring spinward of the
Spinward Marches.

HIWG Australia has been developing Yiklerzdanzh sector (the one
immediately spinward of Far Frontiers) for the last couple of years.  We
are hoping to get the various bits of work of the individual developers
drawn together over the next couple of months, with the result being
distributed in some form after that.  At this stage, it is expected that
adventures will follow.

We were hoping to have had things done by now, but drawing all the work
together, and getting missing bits filled in, is taking longer than we
wanted.  In computing, there is a saying that goes something like "The
first 90% of the project takes the first 90% of the time, and the last 10%
of the project takes the other 90% of the time". (I know there are
variations).  The saying appears to be true in the 58th century as well!

Also, has anyone noticed that type A Free Traders come with fuel
purification plants, now?  I have been having some correspondence on
this.

This may well be different in the Empire of Deneb, but otherwise, this
is quite significant.  There is less reason to buy refined fuel, since
you can just buy unrefined for a fifth of the cost, and purify it while
waiting for your cargo to arrive.  If the world has water/ice
available, you don't even need to buy unrefined fuel.  It will also
mean that gas giants will be less useful, since it takes so much
longer to get there with the new drives (and time is money when
you are a merchant) and it is much longer and more dangerous to
refuel that way than ocenas/ice anyway.  Pirates will correspondingly find
lurking in gas giants less profitable (and more ships will be jumping-0
past them anyway, than in the past).

Since the trading rules seem to be otherwise unchanged from MegaTraveller,
characters will now be making much more money per jump than in the past.

I have doubts whether refined fuel being quintuple normal price is worth
while anyway.  I can imagine players using their own plant to purify fuel
for other people (they have several days waiting for cargo after all) and
making a mint.  The starport may not like the competition, though!

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Grant Sinclair                  "Cream rises to the top...
[email removed]                  but so does scum..."
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