More ranting on the TNE thread....
VIRUS
Probably the most difficult thing to deal with rationally. For a game
that's gone so heavily into "hard science" lately, the Virus is anything
but.
For instance:
Given that the Virus spreads by communication (and a case for self-
rewritable synaptic computers can be made here), I can deal with the
wholesale infection of starships. I can deal with the infection
of world internets. But a lot of isolated systems should have been
missed. A computer dedicated to controlling gravitic generators on
a floating city or a gravitic air "dome" as on Luna should be totally
isolated from outside networks -- there's too much chance for tom-
foolery.
Why the robot hysteria? A master-slave system like the harvester that
got Dulinor, that I can understand. But independent 'bots that
don't hook up to computers shouldn't be a danger unless somebody
manually infects them. And Virus can't spread by psionics because
then it a) automatically infects everything and b) could possibly
infect "living beings" like humans. It'd just take a while to
figure out the protocols.... Further, a world like Vincennes in
the Regency with its reliance on robotics and early TL17 in
robotics and communications would be *better suited* to understand
Virus, so abandoning that technology would be silly.
But apparently the indepedent systems were got too -- and they
shouldn't have been. Especially if they were supposed to follow
the guidelines on Virus that they wrote in TNE!
RULES
My biggest rules gripe is the new skill/asset confusion. I'd rather
see UPPs for NPCs and figure out their "assets" than risk confusion
between skill level and asset (skill + attribute) level.
My second biggest gripe is the difficulty in rolling up alien PCs.
(Always a problem in Traveller, actually -- it's so humanocentric,
but has some good aliens.) Right now you can either "reverse
engineer" them from the NPC templates (with some difficulty), or
use old rules if you can find them and convert them with _Survival
Margin_. Or, if you have PoT, play a Schall. PC generation rules
run about a page.
Also, the UWP for population is seriously screwed up for TNE. In
Traveller, it seems to have represented citizens of the local
government. Which means it often misses local aliens. For instance,
published material says there is a tech-0 vaccuum living alien race
on Thorell/Aubaine, but there is no way to see this since the UWP
reflects the destroyed Imperial interdiction station and claims the
world is barren.
For the most part, of course, the rules aren't the problem. Especially
if they don't change them *again* anytimne soon.
BACKGROUND
IMHO, GDW will have to advance the history quickly to keep people
interested. And once we get out of the Solomani-dominated
Diaspora and Old Expanses, we'll have to see what's become of the
old Imperial cultural regions and alien races, human and non-human.
DIGRESSIONS
On an unrelated note:
In the TNE rulebook, there are several subsector-sized ppocket
empires shown connecting the RC and the Hive Federation *which is
shown as fairly intact* (from what we can see of it). What are
they? Hiver bases? Small versions of the RC? Does the RC even
know about them? One seems to be placed in the Hinterworlds in
such a way as to include the Leenitakot "ringworld" formerly held
by the xenophobic Outcasts of the Whispering Sky. Wonder what's
up.
Steve Bonneville
[email removed]