Dreadnought
SOC-12
Gadzooks, I have no idea. That's why we have referees: to do the heavy lifting.
Another set of questions for Dave
- Thread starter Zparkz
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Gadzooks, I have no idea. That's why we have referees: to do the heavy lifting.
Dreadnought
SOC-12
Encore
I already answered another person's version of this last night, but will drone on a little more here. Re: adding to controversy and add obvious contradiction, as I said, I thought it was more interesting, and smoothed out something that felt arbitrary. As far as obvious contradictions go, you'd have to see past getting rid of thruster plates, detonation laser missiles, etc., and in all of those cases we decided that certain obvious contradictions were improvements to the game. To the best of my knowledge, we never published, "by the way, we've changed the rule about 100 tons," but simply left out the prohibition and showed by example we were no longer enforcing it, but by the same token did not discuss jump torps, as substituting one arbitrary displacement number for another runs counter to the premise. Did it radically change the feel of the game? I don't think so, but different people feed different sacred cows, and I understand that Marc has since unretconned the retcon.
It reminds me of Gene Roddenberry's famous pissing around the fire hydrant that, "real Star Trek starships have even numbers of warp nacelles, not one or three," because I like the potential depth that can add. The reason I like it is the idea that it shows us something about the fictional physics of the warp fields, how they must be balanced, how they must extend around the ship in a way that dynamically interacts with BS A and BS B and BS C, and that is inherently interesting. Nonetheless, I also like the Franz Joseph dreadnoughts and the Enterprise D with the third nacelle, which goes to show you that I can be perfectly happy liking diametrically-opposed things, at least until I am forced to make a specific choice. And this also goes into adding depth to fictional physics. I was going to add to in-game physics of jump space, link it to psionics, and show that J-1, J-2, J-3, etc., were different energy levels in the same space, and that real-time psionics was operating there as well, instead of being separate J-1, J-2, and J-3 universes, and this is related to dropping the arbitrary 100 ton value, it would have more to do with jump field configurations, entry vectors, etc. You can see the leading edges of that in RSB. Is that an obvious contradiction? Or is it making it more interesting? For my money, it was making it more interesting, and that was what our job descriptions required us to try to do. If we don't, we should just republish LBBs 1-3 forever, and many would prefer that, and there is nothing wrong with that. But what we did was say, "let's explore this, and refine that, and if we think this is a better idea, go with it." But obviously change, for all its ubiquity, is something the human psyche instinctively haggles with.
I already answered another person's version of this last night, but will drone on a little more here. Re: adding to controversy and add obvious contradiction, as I said, I thought it was more interesting, and smoothed out something that felt arbitrary. As far as obvious contradictions go, you'd have to see past getting rid of thruster plates, detonation laser missiles, etc., and in all of those cases we decided that certain obvious contradictions were improvements to the game. To the best of my knowledge, we never published, "by the way, we've changed the rule about 100 tons," but simply left out the prohibition and showed by example we were no longer enforcing it, but by the same token did not discuss jump torps, as substituting one arbitrary displacement number for another runs counter to the premise. Did it radically change the feel of the game? I don't think so, but different people feed different sacred cows, and I understand that Marc has since unretconned the retcon.
It reminds me of Gene Roddenberry's famous pissing around the fire hydrant that, "real Star Trek starships have even numbers of warp nacelles, not one or three," because I like the potential depth that can add. The reason I like it is the idea that it shows us something about the fictional physics of the warp fields, how they must be balanced, how they must extend around the ship in a way that dynamically interacts with BS A and BS B and BS C, and that is inherently interesting. Nonetheless, I also like the Franz Joseph dreadnoughts and the Enterprise D with the third nacelle, which goes to show you that I can be perfectly happy liking diametrically-opposed things, at least until I am forced to make a specific choice. And this also goes into adding depth to fictional physics. I was going to add to in-game physics of jump space, link it to psionics, and show that J-1, J-2, J-3, etc., were different energy levels in the same space, and that real-time psionics was operating there as well, instead of being separate J-1, J-2, and J-3 universes, and this is related to dropping the arbitrary 100 ton value, it would have more to do with jump field configurations, entry vectors, etc. You can see the leading edges of that in RSB. Is that an obvious contradiction? Or is it making it more interesting? For my money, it was making it more interesting, and that was what our job descriptions required us to try to do. If we don't, we should just republish LBBs 1-3 forever, and many would prefer that, and there is nothing wrong with that. But what we did was say, "let's explore this, and refine that, and if we think this is a better idea, go with it." But obviously change, for all its ubiquity, is something the human psyche instinctively haggles with.
Dreadnought
SOC-12
Answering questions with questions
So, was this soon enough? I think I know the answer to that.
So, was this soon enough? I think I know the answer to that.
Dreadnought
SOC-12
NO NO! No rogue threads just because of a little topic wandering. Why "they'll" just come in here and do the same thing and Dave will never answer our burning questions
Sorry, I kid, I like to imagine Dave will enjoy some of the wandering humor, there was humor wasn't there
We now return you to the new and improved "Ask Dave" thread, now with less off topic noise!
Yes, Dan, I did think there was humor in there, and I enjoyed it, thank you. I enjoy quixotic panicky pseudo-rants.
Dave
Okay, that sounds right. What was it, Lancer/Fusilier was short hull and Belladonna long? Or something more complicated? Kind of makes you wonder why you ask me questions if I have to ask you what my answer was.
Funny enough, but I don't remember! It looks like the board either upgraded and/or changed software (which is why the old emoticons are broken) which also had a side effect of losing the post history past a certain point (mine only goes to 2007).
Dreadnought
SOC-12
Yeah, I had the same feeling, although it's been years since I'd been here. I noticed the emoticons being broken, and also my icon is no longer there, but it was a non-standard one that was granted to me.
As for the post histories, I've had no problem seeing threads back in 2001, although if you're saying that they may have lost some individual posts, I'd have no way of knowing that.
Ah yeah, meant to say they just don't appear in the CP (though I'm fixing that by resubscribing right now). I can manually look back and see found the Belladonna thread where you said the Lancer and Fusilier were based on the 144m Aurora spine while the Belladonna was based on the longer 162m Maggart spine.
http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=7446&page=2
That's a nice trip down memory lane!
http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=7446&page=2
That's a nice trip down memory lane!
I didn't hold my breath. I would have been in the deep blue by now =0)
After waiting 8 years I wrote my own fix for the Nuclear Dampers here: http://www.travellerfreeport.com/article-categories/houserules/51-improving-tne-nuclear-dampers.html
Dreadnought
SOC-12
The flesh that had rotted off your bones might still be deep blue by now. ;-)
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