Gentlesophonts:
Wow! I'm still having mail problems but my dip into the ftp pool has
turned up a whole mess of stuff on this naval forces/technology/economics
discussion. Actually, it's kind of neat seeing it all come together (or
at least being able to recognize the inter-relatedness). I just wish some
folks wouldn't take things (or *make* things) so personal.
"First, we kill all the rules lawyers."
- David Johnson [after William Shakespeare] :-)
From last Wednesday night, Wes Esser [email removed] writes:
> All this talk about naval forces etc set me thinking, so I
> decided to do an analysis of the class A starports in the Domain
> ca 1120.
This is great work, Wes! The reason I've been pursuing this discussion was
to generate this sort of information. All these folks arguing for different
rules isn't particularly interesting *or* useful. IMHO, though, efforts
like this are.
> It does
> however explain how the Domain could survive at a high tech level:
> it actually has a strong, high tech industrial base.
See! This is useful information. It adds to our understanding of the
Regency (or the Imperium) and is a great contribution to *Shall Not Perish*.
> What this seems to imply is that the MT figure of 1000 ships per
> sector is a limit imposed by Imperial Policy, not by the
> limitations on planetary economies.
You mean there is another course besides endless rants about one's favorite
rules? :-) Once again, we've managed to discover a background issue in
the morass of rules data that exists out there.
> I think this may shed some light on the continuing discussion
> about the Sword Worlds.
I do too. Thanks, Wes, for actually *trying* to reconcile the divergent
rules information rather than merely rejecting out of hand the source that
you disagree with. (of course, it still doesn't explain the *5FW* counters
for the Sword Worlds . . . .)
> Ok...so there's my two centicredits worth...
I think it was worth a great deal more. :-)
Rob Dean [email removed] writes:
> David Johnson and Cynthia Higginbotham are engaging in a rather acrimonious
> dispute over which version of Traveller reality we should use to visualize
> fleet conditions in the Imperium.
I'm sorry if it has appeared acrimonious. That certainly hasn't been my
intention or impression. And I really don't care *which* 'reality' we
should accept. I've been trying to understand *why* we should accept either
one over the other. IMHO, the ideal situation would be to reconcile *all*
official information. I recognize that this may not be possible but I
think Wes has shown us that it's less impossible in this case then some
folks think.
> I haven't got time for a detailed answer, but you have to start on the
> basis of accepting that there is no way that 5FW can be reconciled with
> TCS.
Thanks to Wes I don't think we do *have* to start with this assumption. If
we broaden the discussion beyond mere issues of rules to include the entire
campaign we recognize that *rules* are just a tool that can be used to
facilitate the larger endeavor of the entire campaign background.
> Once you get past that, the reason for not accepting 5FW as the
> model is this: The ship levels in 5FW are way too low for any reasonable
> bottom up estimate based on population or economic activity.
See, here we are again. What's the value of basing the decision merely
upon 'rules' data like population and 'economics'? If we remember that
this is an entire role-playing campaign, we see there are other aspects
like politics and culture to help us explain these 'facts'.
> I agree with Steve Higginbotham, who said that 5FW was best viewed as a
> "simplified" representation of the "real" world, since no one would want to
> push 10,000 counters around.
This may be but you have to admit it is based upon a 'rules-only' point
of view.
> Rob Dean
> (stirring in his long hibernation)
Glad to see you haven't left us for XTML (yet?).
Peace,
David Johnson
Houston, Texas, USA