mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Yup,
it's on page 20 of HG 2nd edition:
SDB, FFW, & HG
- Thread starter Hal
- Start date
it's on page 20 of HG 2nd edition:
BetterThanLife
SOC-14 1K
There could also be noncompete clauses inthe Starport licensing contracts. Or the Starport may be built by the same company that already has the market virtually cornered in starship construction.
How economical is it to ship in required raw materials then build drives out of them? Can you do it without a significant loss compared to someone that has the materials available locally? You can't after all charge any more for a dirve than any other class A starport.
Basically, unless the Imperium comes down (Probably in the form of the Imperial Navy) and says I want shipbuilding facilities here, and you have the natural resources do you have the will to get into an already highly competetive market with a multibillion Credit investment for improvements to your starport, your navigational beacons, etc tobecome a Class A Starport. Do you have enough reason locally to need to build starships? Do you have enough going for your planet to attract a shipbuilding corporation to your planet to build the ships? (Proper tax structure, tax incentives, bribes,etc....) Just because it is technically possible doesn't make it economically feasable.
My favorite are the Class A starports with population numbers around 2. OOOps Less than 1000 people live on this planet, How do they do anything but run the starport? How do they actually find enough people to actually do the maintenance? Much less the construction?
How economical is it to ship in required raw materials then build drives out of them? Can you do it without a significant loss compared to someone that has the materials available locally? You can't after all charge any more for a dirve than any other class A starport.
Basically, unless the Imperium comes down (Probably in the form of the Imperial Navy) and says I want shipbuilding facilities here, and you have the natural resources do you have the will to get into an already highly competetive market with a multibillion Credit investment for improvements to your starport, your navigational beacons, etc tobecome a Class A Starport. Do you have enough reason locally to need to build starships? Do you have enough going for your planet to attract a shipbuilding corporation to your planet to build the ships? (Proper tax structure, tax incentives, bribes,etc....) Just because it is technically possible doesn't make it economically feasable.
My favorite are the Class A starports with population numbers around 2. OOOps Less than 1000 people live on this planet, How do they do anything but run the starport? How do they actually find enough people to actually do the maintenance? Much less the construction?
BetterThanLife
SOC-14 1K
You can tell me that we are going to have Corporations organized on a vast interplanetary scale and not have Labor Unions organized on the same scale? I do doubt they will be everywhere. I am sure that some planets will outlaw them outright. (And those same planets will probably outlaw corporations. Or at least a similar number) But if we are going to take the concept of Corporations to the stars I can't see not taking the flip side, collective bargaining to the stars as well. Especially considering how powerful some of these Unions are today. If you don't believe me talk to UPS, or SBC or Kroger. They have been trying to break the Unions they have to deal with for some time. UFCW has gotten into 4 Wal-Mart Stores, so far, and that is despite the vehement anti-Union stand Wal-Mart has. DOn't count the Unions out yet.
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RainOfSteel
SOC-14 1K
Originally posted by Hal:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by RainOfSteel:
I never did like that jump grid theory, but that's just me. The inchorence of handwavium explanations between editions sets my teeth on edge some of the time.
Same here for me. As it is? I'm trying to reconcile the jump duration issue. Marc Miller states CLEARLY in a relatively recent JTAS article on jump space mechanics, that the margin for astrogation error is roughly 3,000 kilometers per parsec travelled. The problem is - that with planets in motion, a miss by as little as 2 hours will cause a person to miss the intended PLANET by more than the 3,000 kilometers per parsec if you intended to show up at approximately the right location... </font>[/QUOTE]I'm affraid I see no such problem.
You are thinking reality/physics, and the Jumpspace is handwavium pure as the new blown snow.
I can jump to an intended point in space, 100d plus margin of error for safety, where I calculate the plant will be at the standard 1 week later, and even those it take me less or more time, actually emerge in exactly the right place with only the specified 3000 kilometers/parsec variance. How do I do this? It's freakin' magic! Or to generate handwavium of exceptional purity: "The exit and emergence points are set by the jump calculations, the time it requires to complete the jump is a random amount restrained by maximum and minimum amounts, but those amounts are not related to where the jump exit and emergence points are."
The first issue is legal blocks to unionism. These can be outright blocks (RL examples can be found today in China), or partial blocks against secondary picketing (making so-called sympathy strikes illegal).
The second issue is cultural. Don't forget that many planets across the Imperium are inhabited by non-human races. A minor race with a more hive-like world view may not even understand the idea of workers negotiating with leaders. And I think its conceivable that you could have a human society for which that's true as well. (Actually, I think of all the races the Vargr are going to have the most active unionism.)
The third issue is scale. How many unions, today, are organised internationally (outside North America)? Do you really think the workers union at Cox & Wyman Engineering (on Uakye/Regina) cares what goes on at Angel One Construction (on Efate/Regina)?
The fourth issue is monopolies. On how many worlds will all the different ship construction companies have the same union (of a union in a monopolistic alliance)? Just because workers at General feel a certain way on an issue doesn't mean workers at LSP will feel the same, and they'll probably have different unions.
With the greater potential for "off-shore out-sourcing" present in Traveller I just don't see unionism playing as big a roll as it does in today's western culture. However, IYTU YMMV.
Regards PLST
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Answers include:
)
) to "grow" the ships in vats 
BetterThanLife
SOC-14 1K
Highly Automated. Cousins of the Kinunir AI?
Theophilus
SOC-13
Rather than read all four pages I'll just give my answer.
IT IS WRITTEN:
"all ten heavy system defense boats were launched and are rumored to be vectoring..."
Regina placed all ten of their 10,000 ton System Defense Boats on alert
5th Frontier War: Regina has 10 system defense boats.
Call me a fool, but are these the same as the 10,000 ton system defense boats mentioned (in canon)? {probably better to call them monitors, but that blasted canon says sdb's}
And if so does that change how we view the sdb's from FFW.
IT IS WRITTEN:
"all ten heavy system defense boats were launched and are rumored to be vectoring..."
Regina placed all ten of their 10,000 ton System Defense Boats on alert
5th Frontier War: Regina has 10 system defense boats.
Call me a fool, but are these the same as the 10,000 ton system defense boats mentioned (in canon)? {probably better to call them monitors, but that blasted canon says sdb's}
And if so does that change how we view the sdb's from FFW.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Regina, home of the TL15 equipped 4518th Lift Infantry Regiment.Originally posted by Hal:
Thanks for the comment Theophilus - I should be able to come up with the stats on Regina's SDB factors. Might be interesting to see how it works out
Of course, this applies to Regina and her population factor plus her Tech level as to how she got ten 10,000 dton boats
Maybe Norris used his connections to get some SDBs as well
By the way, Regina is TL10 in FFW, and yet TL12 in SMC???
That brings into being another question - if a TL 15 (GURPS tech 12) unit is stationed at a world other than its normal "environment" (ie a TL 15 world) - does its maintenance cost go up as well? I'm betting that it does *unless* the unit comes with its own resupply capabilities. But when you get right down to it - what does doubling the maintenance costs represent? The cost of keeping that unit in supply away from home...
Hmmmm
Hmmmm
RainOfSteel
SOC-14 1K
Hal, you raise an interesting point, to which I'll point out: Almost the entirety of the IN is TL-15 (or at least, it appears to be), and almost all of it is away from TL-15 worlds most of the time . . .
I'd have to say that the IN has inherent resupply. I've always assumed the IN has a fleet of freighters with missile and spare parts reloads, and repair ships/mobile dockyards. Paying for those vessels and their maintenence, their crews and their training, the expendables, and the inevitable escorts that would be assigned to protect them, will have to represent a chunk of the IN budget.
I'd have to say that the IN has inherent resupply. I've always assumed the IN has a fleet of freighters with missile and spare parts reloads, and repair ships/mobile dockyards. Paying for those vessels and their maintenence, their crews and their training, the expendables, and the inevitable escorts that would be assigned to protect them, will have to represent a chunk of the IN budget.
The questions raised are hopefully going to be answered by some kind soul The alternative to that is that I will have to cobble up my own rules.
Today, I made more headway on my vector movement rules. I had to search an old Trigonometry book on how to calculate the distance between two points for Polar co-ordinates. In theory, one could figure out the length of a third side of a triangle if all you knew was only ONE angle within that triangle. I'm so far from the day I graduated from High School it isn't funny
But I finally found that one all important formula:
C^2 = A^2+B^2 - 2ab cos C
From that, I can solve for C.
In any event, little by little things begin to shape up. I hope to be able to do a little "test battle" between two smaller ships before too long.
The alternative to that is that I will have to cobble up my own rules.Today, I made more headway on my vector movement rules. I had to search an old Trigonometry book on how to calculate the distance between two points for Polar co-ordinates. In theory, one could figure out the length of a third side of a triangle if all you knew was only ONE angle within that triangle. I'm so far from the day I graduated from High School it isn't funny
But I finally found that one all important formula:
C^2 = A^2+B^2 - 2ab cos C
From that, I can solve for C.
In any event, little by little things begin to shape up. I hope to be able to do a little "test battle" between two smaller ships before too long.
The reference to the Regina SDBs is contained in the TNS bulletins printed in the FFW rule book. Now, it doesn't say how big they are, but it does say that "all ten heavy system defence boats" were sent to the gas giant.
Does this mean we have to change our view of what the SDB factors in FFW mean? Not necessarily. The imnpression I've had was that the SDB factors were an abstraction, combining individual, heavy boats (up to and including monitors) but also incorporating squadrons of smaller boats.
Does this mean we have to change our view of what the SDB factors in FFW mean? Not necessarily. The imnpression I've had was that the SDB factors were an abstraction, combining individual, heavy boats (up to and including monitors) but also incorporating squadrons of smaller boats.
Yes. Regina's TL was originally (said to be) 10. It was changed in The Spinward Marches Campaign. The big question is, was this change intended to be retroactive or did it just mean that Regina jumped two TLs from 1107 to 1111?
Keeping in mind that Regina is able to build Jump-4 ships in 1105 (Ref: The Kinunir), I prefer to believe that Regina was TL 12 all along. YMMV.
Hans
BetterThanLife
SOC-14 1K
OK Here are the important numbers for triangles. a squared + b squared = c squared. (Right Triangles the sum of the square of the two legs equals the square of the hypoteneuse.) Are we maneuvering in two dimensions or three?
Three dimensional geometry is a real bitch! I beleive I have the formulas for just about anything if I dig far enough for them. (It has been a few years since I was a Math Major, 20 to be more precise.)
In polar coordinates you are then dealing with two angles. The math is fairly straightforward but the formulas are a bitch. Are you using a full 360 on the Z axis or +/-90 (+/- 90 actually makes more sense.
)
Now you have me curious, what on Earth, or elsewhere are you working on?
Three dimensional geometry is a real bitch! I beleive I have the formulas for just about anything if I dig far enough for them. (It has been a few years since I was a Math Major, 20 to be more precise.)
In polar coordinates you are then dealing with two angles. The math is fairly straightforward but the formulas are a bitch. Are you using a full 360 on the Z axis or +/-90 (+/- 90 actually makes more sense.
Now you have me curious, what on Earth, or elsewhere are you working on?
Originally posted by Hal:
The questions raised are hopefully going to be answered by some kind soul
Today, I made more headway on my vector movement rules. I had to search an old Trigonometry book on how to calculate the distance between two points for Polar co-ordinates. In theory, one could figure out the length of a third side of a triangle if all you knew was only ONE angle within that triangle. I'm so far from the day I graduated from High School it isn't funny
But I finally found that one all important formula:
C^2 = A^2+B^2 - 2ab cos C
From that, I can solve for C.
In any event, little by little things begin to shape up. I hope to be able to do a little "test battle" between two smaller ships before too long.
far-trader
SOC-14 10K
Or is it (the change to TL12) just another of the more than a few errors in Traveller's long history and completely unintentional
A bit of a dubious reference but one that may work for some, as you say YMMV
In answer of the question: "What on earth or elsewhere am I working on" a set of rules that can be used for strategic warfare and tactical combats. The game is strictly played on a 2d mapboard and utilizes vector movement. The capability of the rules has to provide for movement of ships out by where one expects to find gas giants as well as in close to the primary sun. Ultimately, what I'm attempting to do is broaden the vector movement rules from LLB without having to really use graph paper, but can be programmed into the computer to determine locations.
The devil as they say, is in the details. For example, a ship that has been accelerating for 24 hours at 4 G has a built up velocity of 2105 miles per second. Had such a ship accelerated from earth orbit out away from Earth, the distance travelled would be 22.73 Million miles. The "game" I'm working on must be able to work with such numbers
As for the comment made by Hans - We have an early example of where GDW made an error between cannon material and later canon material. THE SPINWARD MARCHES supplement came out 1979, SCOUTS came out in 1983. The Kinunir came out in 1979. Both SCOUTS & THE SPINWARD MARCHES supplement state Regina is TL 10. The Kinunir class ships aren't listed as TL 15 until we talk about Supplement 9 FIGHTING SHIPS - copyright 1981. By 1985, THE SPINWARD MARCHES CAMPAIGN upgrades Regina to TL 12. All things considered? I'd just go with the original data for Regina in that it is TL 10 and go from there. I am of course curious as to how the Kirunir class ship could be rated at TL 15 regardless of whether Regina is listed as TL 10 or TL 12. One would almost have to think that the starports themselves are all built to TL 15 standards
Then again - it wouldn't take much for any GM for their "IMTU" to decree one way or another whether Regina is TL 10 or TL 12, and whether the listed Kinunir class ship is supposed to be TL 10, 12, or 15. Frankly, based on what Marc Miller wrote in his JTAS BATTLE FLEET OF THE MARCHES (as well as implied in FFW boardgame) - colonial fleets are supposed to be comprised of locally produced ships. The Kinunir class ship should at BEST be TL 12, not 15. Ah well, nothing I will lose any sleep over.
***Addenda***
I just checked HIGH GUARD to see when a ship can have Jump 4 capability, and it works out to TL 13! Kinunir breaks canon so many ways it isn't funny.
You know - someone should go through all the canon material with a fine tooth comb (the same set of rules as utilized by today's writers for Traveller material) and see what violates canon of any work preceeding them and FIXED. I know - that will never happen.
The devil as they say, is in the details. For example, a ship that has been accelerating for 24 hours at 4 G has a built up velocity of 2105 miles per second. Had such a ship accelerated from earth orbit out away from Earth, the distance travelled would be 22.73 Million miles. The "game" I'm working on must be able to work with such numbers
As for the comment made by Hans - We have an early example of where GDW made an error between cannon material and later canon material. THE SPINWARD MARCHES supplement came out 1979, SCOUTS came out in 1983. The Kinunir came out in 1979. Both SCOUTS & THE SPINWARD MARCHES supplement state Regina is TL 10. The Kinunir class ships aren't listed as TL 15 until we talk about Supplement 9 FIGHTING SHIPS - copyright 1981. By 1985, THE SPINWARD MARCHES CAMPAIGN upgrades Regina to TL 12. All things considered? I'd just go with the original data for Regina in that it is TL 10 and go from there. I am of course curious as to how the Kirunir class ship could be rated at TL 15 regardless of whether Regina is listed as TL 10 or TL 12. One would almost have to think that the starports themselves are all built to TL 15 standards
Then again - it wouldn't take much for any GM for their "IMTU" to decree one way or another whether Regina is TL 10 or TL 12, and whether the listed Kinunir class ship is supposed to be TL 10, 12, or 15. Frankly, based on what Marc Miller wrote in his JTAS BATTLE FLEET OF THE MARCHES (as well as implied in FFW boardgame) - colonial fleets are supposed to be comprised of locally produced ships. The Kinunir class ship should at BEST be TL 12, not 15. Ah well, nothing I will lose any sleep over.
***Addenda***
I just checked HIGH GUARD to see when a ship can have Jump 4 capability, and it works out to TL 13! Kinunir breaks canon so many ways it isn't funny.
You know - someone should go through all the canon material with a fine tooth comb (the same set of rules as utilized by today's writers for Traveller material) and see what violates canon of any work preceeding them and FIXED. I know - that will never happen.
I'm not disputing the canonical facts. I'm pointing out that they are inconsistent. Regina can't be TL 10 and build jump-4 ships at the same time. One or the other of the two facts (or both
Your privilege, of course.
That's just it. The Kinunir doesn't have to be TL 15, but it does have to be minimum TL 13. You don't really ruin any of the background by declaring the TL 15 information to be a mistake, but you do ruin quite a lot by giving the Kinunir a TL lower than 13.
One aspect of what makes the best fix is the question "What causes the least damage?" Can you think of any canonical information about Regina (other than the UWP itself) where it makes a difference if Regina is TL 10 or TL 12 in 1105?
Now, according to World Builder's Handbook it is possible, even common, for a world to have a a higher TL than its High Common TL (which is what the TL digit in the UWP shows) in selected fields, but it is not common (I'm tempted to say impossible, but I don't have WBH with me, so I won't go out on a limb) for a world to have a TL three higher than its High Common TL. Thus it is (IMO) much more plausible for Regina to have a High Common TL of 12 and a space TL of 13 than it is for Regina to have a High Common TL of 10 and a space TL of 13.
As a secondary consideration, I think that a TL jump of two levels in four years is pretty strange. Not impossible (it is, after all, four war years), but still, it's something to be taken into account.
As another secondary consideration, I think that as the subsector capital of an old established starcluster with a rival high-population world with TL 13, Regina would work better with a TL of 12 than a TL of 10. YMM, of course, V.
Some of us are doing the best we can
.Hans
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