Stutterwarp and Beyond

[Colin]

AS far as the NSL goes, I agree that new stars would be found all the time. In in the timeline, it happens, but is very rare. The Back Door through Ylii space was one such, and changed the whole strategic nature of the war.
By adding new stars to the NSL, you invalidate the whole history and structure of the 2300AD universe. Yes, you could certainly have a universe that didn't have chokepoints, where the FTL tech was more War-ish, or Trek-ish, but it wouldn't be 2300 AD.
Adding the new stars, while certainly technically correct, has the side-effect of invalidating the whole 2300AD history, as well as the current political and economic structure in the game.
The whole background of the 2300AD universe was gamed out over a period of time (how long? Don't know) by GDW staff. The way the current universe looks, the nations and politics, is a direct result of that game and its assumptions.

Yes, you could redo the star map, update the NSL. Then you would have to go back and completely rewrite the setting and history, likely by gaming it out again. After all that, however, you will have produced a game that doesn't bear a whole lot of resemblance to the 2300 AD reprints slated to come out later this year. You would lose that synergy.

Best just to stick with the NSL, and have the discovery of red or brown dwarfs happen in-game. Perhaps as part of some meta-plot

 

[aramis]

Originally posted by Tom Kalbfus:
One thing I don't like about the Stutterwarp and the Jump Drive is that it turns the vacuum into barriers that make space into a giant 3-dimensional dungeon with "walls" made out of nothingness and "corridors" made out of stars. Its kind of like traversing a pond by jumping from stone to stone rather than just getting into a boat and rowing across. I don't get why this is so darned important. (major snippage)

OK, I'll draw a trek comparison and a real word comparison to illustrate the nature of the 7.7 LY limit vs the limit of trek.

In 2300, you've got 7.7 LY ( 2.5 pc, or so) to find a discharge or die. In Trek, we see ships that can cruise for dozens, if not hundreds, of parsecs on a single excursion. So, when the number of stars in range has a median >2 we no longer have "Chains" for arms. No world becomes a chokepoint.

In the real world, this way: on the pacific, wind ships often needed to sail island to island, in order to obtain one most precious object: potable water (It was heavy, hard to store, and easily lost). With the advent of steamers, and the average water endurance going up, too, (Steamers could recover some steam into potable water) many islands ceasing being stopping points. With the newer, faster mega-ships, they have an endurance greater than their cruise time across the pac... making the islands irrelevant when not a destination for other reasons than supply. With Nuke subs, the islands cease even being relevant except as hazards...

In WWII Pacific theater, we hopped island to island to prevent coaling bases and airbases. The aircraft operated island to island, or island-target-island. This ships operated island group to island group, and the larger ones could operate rim to rim of the pacific.

And for a traveller comparison: In CT, ships couldn't possibly carry 2J5 Jfuel, a 10 pc barrier was impossible to cross with a single ship. (With 6, it could be done) a 2J4 was doable but just barely. In MT, it is possible to make 2J6 or 3J4 drives... it made such a difference in ship design capabilities, that MT-Only players couldn't understand why you couldn't just "Hop the Rifts". In fact, I've even had a player who made a ship which could afford to operate out to the islands cluster... 3J3 (60% fuel, 4% JDrive, 2% MDrive, ~15% controls and accom...). That a ship can carry cargo to and from the islannds cluster under MT totally destroys the canon of that cluster requiring calibration points, and/or drop tanks.

changes to the frequency of stellar occurance (The resource needed periodically which most limits tavel endurance) changes the nature of the mechanics-imposed topological structures to which the setting history is tied (once mankind is in space). Yeah, we could walk down familiar streets and find landmarks we know in the 2300 Earth, but add the red dwarves, and they might be occupied by Kafer, who figured out where PinkHome was, and landed in force, having bypassed all the intervening occupied systems, because they went red to red...

(I run 2300 either for the setting, with its arms and wars, or or the CG and play mechanics, depending on mood...)

 

[TKalbfus]

The trouble with the Stutterwarp is that it makes everyone sensitive to the frequency of stars, and drop a new star in and it changes the board completely. Now you say that adding new stars would change the history completely. I say that is only true if you add the new stars and everyone in the setting knows about them from the beginning of the 2300 timeline, but that's not what I'm proposing. The new stars are there but nobody knows about them until their discovery in say 2303, 2304, or 2305. Anyway what if their is a gap between stars greater than 7.7 light years, say 10 light years. The Kafers can then simply build interstellar ramjets accelerate for 5 light years and decelerate for another 5 light years and invade the Earth from an unexpected direction. By foresaking FTL, you can travel places FTL can't take you in this universe. This small hop FTL thing is entirely artificial. These barriers would not be barriers to slower that light relativistic starships. Now it would take the Kafers at least 10 years to cross that distance at STL, but if no one detects them comming until its too late, they can still achieve surprise.

 

[Solo]

Originally posted by Tom Kalbfus:
[QB] The trouble with the Stutterwarp is that it makes everyone sensitive to the frequency of stars, and drop a new star in and it changes the board completely. Now you say that adding new stars would change the history completely. I say that is only true if you add the new stars and everyone in the setting knows about them from the beginning of the 2300 timeline, but that's not what I'm proposing. The new stars are there but nobody knows about them until their discovery in say 2303, 2304, or 2305. [QB]

If we ignore the "new" stars that we now know are out there or add the stars later in the timeline then we (the real world) discovered them doesn't this invalidate the base idea of the 2300AD game? That being a Hard-Science fiction role-playing game? Isn't this more significant than the hand-wave of Stutterwarp drive? An unrealistic (?) set of rules for generating solar systems is not ok but ignoring the existence of stars is? Wouldn't it be better to come up with a plausible, if obviously setting imposed, reason for those new stars to not have been used? Plus, are there not 3 real reasons for going to a particular star in the 2300AD universe:

1) Falls within the 7.7 limit.
2) Has a star type that has the chance of having a garden world.
3) After getting there you find Tantalum, which has to be a major portion of the 2300AD economic system. (Tantalum War)

Outside war, I'm going to shoot for those first two when planning missions to investigate stars. And I'm going to stay at any that provide the last.

So why haven't those new stars been used? Hmmm...

 

[TKalbfus]

Outside war, I'm going to shoot for those first two when planning missions to investigate stars. And I'm going to stay at any that provide the last.

So why haven't those new stars been used? Hmmm...

Knowledge of their existance was wiped out when World War III destroyed the Astronomy database in the 20th Century.

 

[Anthony]

Originally posted by Tom Kalbfus:
The new stars are there but nobody knows about them until their discovery in say 2303, 2304, or 2305.

Then you have really bad technology there. Finding every object larger than a brown dwarf within 50 lightyears is doable now, if anyone really cared (for difficulty, it's on a par with finding all the 1 kilometer NEOs).

 

[TKalbfus]

Then you have really bad technology there. Finding every object larger than a brown dwarf within 50 lightyears is doable now, if anyone really cared (for difficulty, it's on a par with finding all the 1 kilometer NEOs).

Well, its a compromise, it allows a way to include the latest stellar data in the Near Star List and Map for 2300. I think the idea is plausible enough for 2300 players in a world where starships need to enter gravity wells to dissapate energy. I don't like metagame reasons to keep stellar data out of date. I think that with each new edition an attempt should be made to keep the star list current. This compromise allows a way to do this without upsetting the game timeline. To answer your question, perhaps the people of 2300 never cared to map every star enough to make a systematic effort. Perhaps an effort was finally made in 2303, and the new stars were the result of the systematic sky survey.

 

[Gallowglass]

Originally posted by Solo:
If we ignore the "new" stars that we now know are out there or add the stars later in the timeline then we (the real world) discovered them doesn't this invalidate the base idea of the 2300AD game? That being a Hard-Science fiction role-playing game? Isn't this more significant than the hand-wave of Stutterwarp drive? An unrealistic (?) set of rules for generating solar systems is not ok but ignoring the existence of stars is?

Yes. Because the former stops it being hard SF, whilst the latter is simply using a different data set. GDW published quite a chunk of 2300AD material (and FFE is about to reprint it). It is all predicated on the assumptions built in to Stutterwarp and the NSL. And star positions are not science: they are data. Stutterwarp is not just a handwave to allow FTL: it is a fundemental part of the nature of the setting, imposing certain limits on travel and communication that affect culture, society, politics, economics and warfare.

Wouldn't it be better to come up with a plausible, if obviously setting imposed, reason for those new stars to not have been used?

We have one: they don't exist in the 2300AD Universe, they aren't on the NSL... And I'm not just being flippant: it's a game setting. Provided we don't have purple and green striped stars inhabited by super intelligent shades of the colour blue, provided the stars we do use are plausible, then it's still a hard SF game, just not in our universe. And let's be honest, even now the evidence against the 2300AD universe is pretty strong...

Plus, are there not 3 real reasons for going to a particular star in the 2300AD universe:

1) Falls within the 7.7 limit.
2) Has a star type that has the chance of having a garden world.
3) After getting there you find Tantalum, which has to be a major portion of the 2300AD economic system. (Tantalum War)

Outside war, I'm going to shoot for those first two when planning missions to investigate stars. And I'm going to stay at any that provide the last.

So why haven't those new stars been used? Hmmm...

Actually, Garden Worlds are hideously expensive to exploit and tantalum, whilst highly desireable, is a long shot. But a gravity well that halves the journey time to BCV or allows direct access to part of the american arm costs little to find and not much to exploit but can reap huge financial gains or military advantages to those who know of it. Thus, it would change the economic, poltical and military history of the setting. Which is fine, but invalidates what has been previously published and whilst thatobviously doesn't bother some people (and frankly is irrelevant on an individual campaign basis), it would have I suspect a T:TNE - like impact on 2300AD if QLI statred changing these fundementals in any new edition.

I am really not bothered what people do in their own campaigns, and some of the variants are fun to discuss (or see on the web) but if 2300AD is to survive commercially, it has to build on it's existing base, not ignore it#...

Cheers,

Nick Middleton


#And why am I having flashbacks to all those early arguments a few years back about why T20 would not be re-writing the OTU to include Mecha, or charge passage by distance travelled, or re-write the trade rules?

 

[TKalbfus]

We have one: they don't exist in the 2300AD Universe, they aren't on the NSL... And I'm not just being flippant: it's a game setting. Provided we don't have purple and green striped stars inhabited by super intelligent shades of the colour blue, provided the stars we do use are plausible, then it's still a hard SF game, just not in our universe. And let's be honest, even now the evidence against the 2300AD universe is pretty strong...

You remind me of that librarian in the movie "Attack of the Clones" "If its not on the list, it does not exist." There are other possible reasons gamewise for the stars not to be on the list. One is that they are unknown stars. 2300 is a young setting and their still exploring these stars. Secondly there existance could easily be kept secret, just because you see a dot in the sky, doesn't mean that its nearby. It would take a long time to measure the distance of every tiny dot in the sky, and whoever did the measuring might not have published all the results, they might want to keep the routes through space secret and for themselves. If everyone assumes that the stars on the chart are all thats there, they might not bother to make a second survey to coroborate the first. Remember when you look at the sky, you see alot more stars than just those within 50 light years. If one sees a star that is not on the chart, the automatic assumption is that it must be further than 50 light years away, an assumption which may or may not be true. Yes is a game system, but I'd like the game system to be flexible and allow room for later revisions. I have the orginal Traveller 2300 boxed set, the new stars would not contradict anything in there. I don't know about the later published adventures as I only have the boxed set. If a certain adventure hinged on there being a certian configuration of stars and no more and no less, well those are the assuptions of the adventure. You use those assumptions for that adventure, but the referee shouldn't allow that adventure to "paint his universe into a corner" by disallowing any stellar updates. I think new published materials should allow for maximum flexibility on the referee's part. The referee should be allowed to decide how many stars in his campaign, and that means including as many existing stars as reasonable possible. Now the Near Star List in my boxed edition says the following:

This Near Star List provides basic information for stars within 50 light years of Sol. Based on Gliese's Catalog of Nearby Stars , edition 1969 (with updates by Halliwell and others), it is the best compilation of accurate data currently available in one place.

I'd rather keep the above statement true, rather than just reprint it verbatim and sell the customer a product making this now untrue statement. Some effort should be made in light of that statement to update the Near Star List, and include the systems where the extraSolar planest were discovered at least. Whether they are applicable to a specific campaign should be the referee's decision, not the publishers. The publisher should include as much as possible and let the referee do the excluding. I consider the Near Star List as a tool for the referee. That's why I consider the boxed edition so valuable, in part because it contains this list, as such I'd like it not to exclude some prominent nearby stars that have been in the news lately, because people will look for them and notice their absence after they've bought the product. The setting itself is fairly obsolete as World War III hasn't happened on Schedule. Some people might want to use the 2300 rules in a future universe of their own divising. This would not make it any less a 2300 game any more than playing D&D using your own setting instead of Greyhawk.

 

[Gallowglass]

Originally posted by Tom Kalbfus:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> We have one: they don't exist in the 2300AD Universe, they aren't on the NSL... And I'm not just being flippant: it's a game setting. Provided we don't have purple and green striped stars inhabited by super intelligent shades of the colour blue, provided the stars we do use are plausible, then it's still a hard SF game, just not in our universe. And let's be honest, even now the evidence against the 2300AD universe is pretty strong...

You remind me of that librarian in the movie "Attack of the Clones" "If its not on the list, it does not exist." There are other possible reasons gamewise for the stars not to be on the list. One is that they are unknown stars. 2300 is a young setting and their still exploring these stars. Secondly there existance could easily be kept secret, just because you see a dot in the sky, doesn't mean that its nearby. </font>[/QUOTE]Three: they aren't there because this is an ALTERNATE universe! The give away being that 2300AD is a game... Now I think that it is still a hard SF setting, because other than the NSL and Stutterwarp it is pretty respectful of our current understanding (unlike say Star Trek). Adding stars to the NSL changes the 2300 AD game setting. I know perfectly well there is more upto date data, I might even chose to use it in a game, possibly even a variant to 2300AD, but it WOULD change the nature of the setting. And in the case of 2300 it's mostly the setting that appeals to me.

It would take a long time to measure the distance of every tiny dot in the sky, and whoever did the measuring might not have published all the results, they might want to keep the routes through space secret and for themselves. If everyone assumes that the stars on the chart are all thats there, they might not bother to make a second survey to coroborate the first. Remember when you look at the sky, you see alot more stars than just those within 50 light years. If one sees a star that is not on the chart, the automatic assumption is that it must be further than 50 light years away, an assumption which may or may not be true. Yes is a game system, but I'd like the game system to be flexible and allow room for later revisions.

Revisions is one things, altering the data-set the game setting is built on in such a way that it would have far-reaching effects on society, politics, economics and the conduct of warfare for a a significant chunk of the already established time-line strikes me as re-writing the game setting to suit personal preferences. In which case, write your own game or license the rules from MWM.

I have the orginal Traveller 2300 boxed set, the new stars would not contradict anything in there. I don't know about the later published adventures as I only have the boxed set. (SNIPPAGE)... The setting itself is fairly obsolete as World War III hasn't happened on Schedule. Some people might want to use the 2300 rules in a future universe of their own divising. This would not make it any less a 2300 game any more than playing D&D using your own setting instead of Greyhawk.

You may have heard of the Kafer War? Fairly central to 2300AD setting? And various other military actions in the timeline? All would need drastic re-thinking using a much more modern NSL. And you are NOT talking about using the rules system in a different setting, you are talking about selling something labelled Greyhawk but featuring a City called Waterdeep and this bloke called Elminster... 2300AD is a setting - I can see no point in QLI or anyone else marketing something called 2300AD that contains neither the 2300AD rules nor the setting as previously published.

Regards,

Nick Middleton

 

[TKalbfus]

Three: they aren't there because this is an ALTERNATE universe! The give away being that 2300AD is a game... Now I think that it is still a hard SF setting, because other than the NSL and Stutterwarp it is pretty respectful of our current understanding (unlike say Star Trek). Adding stars to the NSL changes the 2300 AD game setting. I know perfectly well there is more upto date data, I might even chose to use it in a game, possibly even a variant to 2300AD, but it WOULD change the nature of the setting. And in the case of 2300 it's mostly the setting that appeals to me.

That is your preference, if you referee a game you can choose not to include the new stars in the setting. I'd like to give other referees a choice as well. I'd like an up to date Near Star List that they can use. The old stars and the new updates are clearly delineated so they can make the choice as you have done, rather than provide them with an incomplete outdated star map. Give them the tools to decide what is best, or don't you trust their judgement. Surely not every new star will have drastic campaign altering consequences, and surely not every referee will choose to run the Kafer War according to the official history. The way it unfolds will depend partially upon the PCs actions, that is what a role playing game is about. Now if the players have seen the published adventures on the Kafer war, the referee would want to run the war differently anyhow to keep the PCs guessing. What better way can you think of than to have an up to date Near Star Map that will force a different strategy on the warring sides. Do you envision a campaign where the PCs are just bystanders watching the war unfold like the reading of a history book, or will their decision have significant historical effect? Have you ever played the DragonLance Classic Modules? I have. Now what happens to the Official DragonLance history if Raistlin gets killed by a poisonous snake bite in Module 2? Raistlin is essential to DragonLance History, so according to your argument, the DM cannot allow Raislin's player to get his character into a situation where he gets killed, because then History would unfold differently and it wouldn't be DragonLance by your definition. I believe in including all options, that means an inclusive star map, not your exclusive one. Those stars on that map are real, they are really out their! They are not just fictional game stars, 2300 uses real stars as its backdrop at least in the original boxed edition I have, that's one of the game's attraction to me. As far as I'm concerned the Official Game Universe includes whatever stars are really out there within 50 light years of Earth. The Near Star List is not fiction. What is done with the stars in the context of the 2300 game is fiction, and these stars are given fictional planets in later supplements, rules are provided for the creation of planetary systems. In the real world some of these stars have been found to have real planets in orbit about them, I'd like the list to include them as well establishing part of the planetary system around those stars leaving less work for the referee to do. In later years the Terrestial Planet Finder will find additional planets, these may be added as well in future editions of 2300.

 

[Gallowglass]

Since D&D# was an anology in this discussion (and is hardly relevant), lets stick closer to home with Traveller. I have (as I have repeatedly said) no objection to variants in addition to building on what has gone before, but to me that means that the Stuuterwarp drive and NSL in QLI's core 2300AD book should be the same as previously published.

Whilst I didn't personally like the way T:TNE was handled in execution, conceptually I had no problem with it and it is now part of the continuity. But revising Stutterwarp or changing the NSL does is IMO more akin to the new Traveller Gateway Domain Sourcebook being set in 993TI but with a setting in which the Kafer ruled the Second Imperium and state of the art FTL is Jump-36. The problems is not that this is wrong (it's not, it's just a variant) but that it changes the common substrate on which all our Traveller Universes co-exist, that give all Traveller fans a lingua franca through which we can exchange ideas and stories. I personally tend to ignore official timelines when they get in my way, and therefore get annoyed with heavy handidly imposed, radical alterations. I'm not (here) so much concerned with what happens in 2310 or 2320 (that's a separate debate) but with making changes to Stutterwarp and the NSL for a new edition of 2300AD which renders all the previously published material in need of revision. This raises a barrier both to those building on the old material (using new material requires additional effort) and for adherents to the new (adapting old material requires additional effort). From both a fan and commercial point of view this strikes me as foolish.

Let's get a commercial, sustainable, supported new edition of 2300AD in print and then we will have a foundation on which we can place all sorts of variants but if the brand has any value, and QLI have any interest in bringing the existing fan base with them, any new edition must be respectful of existing continuity.

Regards,

Nick Middleton

# In point of fact, Dragonlunacy came out at about the point I got so fed up with the idiotic rules and attitudes inherent in D&D that I stoped playing it; one contributing factor was reading a DL module where the GM was instructed to place exponentially increasing monster encounters in the PC's path if they went in the wrong direction... D&D modules are better written these days, but 3e/d20 is alas no more sensible or plausible than its fore-bears; but it is at least now internally consistant and genuinely adaptable, so for a certain style of heroic (fantasy) game I quite enjoy playing and running it.

 

[TKalbfus]

How about a compromise, Now hear me out. I open up my boxed edition of Traveller 2300, inside is a poster map of the near stars list. I've noticed that one side has the Map and the other side is blank. Why not instead have a double-sided poster map? All posters have two sides, yet this material uses only one of them. So here my idea, on one side of the map you reprint the old 2300 Near Star List poster map with no additions or subtractions, you then could flip the map over and instead of seeing blank white, you see another similar map, except that this one doesn't have Traveller 2300 written on top, it just says Near Star Map or Generic or non-cannonical Near Star Map. It has the same legend, and scale as the 2300 Near Star Map, except in the Map corners there is no French, Chinese, or American Arms. The near star list is a reprint of the old Near Star List, but now their is an additional section at the end under the heading of non-cannonical stars and extrasolar planets, this has the list of the new stars included on the Non-cannonical Generic Near Star Map, but not on the official 2300 map. People like you can simply ignore whats on the backside of the 2300 map, and ignore the list of non-cannonical stars. You simply just don't show them to your players so as far as they are concerned they don't exist. You can use all the old source material and it is all 100% compatable. But the game is not just for old players. Some of the new players don't care what when on before, they would flip the map over to the Generic Side and use the added stars on the list. There could even be a different timeline thats fully compatible with the generic Near Star List. The timeline will be fairly brief and not add much to the breadth of the product and subtract nothing from your core system. Perhaps it will be necessary to add a few dollars to the cover price, or perhaps not. I think Twilight 2000 might be modified so that it is suitable with the new history. This version of Twilight 2000 would be given a new name ie. Twilight 2020. Twilight 2020 is another version of World War III, but one fought between 1 superpower and a coalition of smaller states that have nuclear weapons. This is an outgrowth of the current war on Terrorism and occurs in our future at an equally remote time as the year 2000 was from the year 1983. This pushes the timeline back another 20 years. Futuristic but realistic weapons would have to be made up for T-2020. For the purists like yourself, you can stick with T-2000 and 2300. Would this compromise be acceptable to you?

 

[BMonnery]

The easiest way to play with a different map is to use Gilese 3 for Warp97

Theres a link to it on my page:

http://www.geocities.com/Area51/9292/

I have the direct link to the programme bookmarked as:

http://archiginnasio.dsnet.it/max/warp/warp98.zip

Be warned, you need to reset the maximum transit distance to 8ly or the new map is essentially unplayable (the French Arm disappears).

Bryn

 

[Gallowglass]

Tom, whilst I like the idea in principle there may be practical problems (boxed sets are pretty much dead from what I understand - too expensive to produce, and fold out maps are also expensive) to including both maps. But the principle is sound (and pretty much what I have been saying all along): do a T20 version of 2300AD (warts and all) but include a couple of solid variants. One obvious one being a 'current' (say as per Bryn's post, Gliese 3.0, or we could include Hipparcos) accurate NSL, with _all_ the adjustments to the setting required; such as changes in the Stutterwarp Threshold to keep previously documented worlds available and detailing the new systems now reachable. Another (possibly the same variant) could also be tied in as the 'future' of one of the variant timelines in the T2K book as you suggest. In actual use, people will mix and match as they see fit, but since aproduct can be clearly labelled as to which variant it is based on, everyone will now what (and roughly how much) work is required in using a particular supplement in their campaign.

And it's not about being purist; if it is covered in fur and growls, it is not a duck, although it might be a nice pet. If it doesn't contain the setting or rules it is not 2300AD, although it might be good role playing game. And I think all parties would be very upset if dogs were sold to people who thought they were buying a sunday roast or wanted a source of eggs...



Cheers,

Nick Middleton

 

[TKalbfus]

Tom, whilst I like the idea in principle there may be practical problems (boxed sets are pretty much dead from what I understand - too expensive to produce, and fold out maps are also expensive) to including both maps. But the principle is sound (and pretty much what I have been saying all along):

The T20 handbook wasn't very cheap either if I recall, it was nearly $50.00. On the other hand, one of the disadvantages of boxed sets is that the various parts and pieces may get lost. Another book may be published instead. The book can have the postermap glue to its center page where it can be easily separated and the glue removed without ripping the page. Another alternative is to just print the whole map on 1 single page and print the other map on the other side, I don't particularly like that solution as it would resemble the back of the 2300 Referee's manual, the stars and the star names are small. Now since 2300 uses T20 rules, there is no sence in repeating them here, you can save some pages that were used in the original edition elaborating on the rules. These pages can be instead used for an expanded atlas of the Near Stars both generic and 2300. You can divide up the near star map into 8 sectors. Each sector is a cube 50 light years on a side and all the cubes would share a corner that included Sol. The stars could likewise be given more depth. Instead of having categories on the key for 30 to 50 ly; 10 to 30 ly, 10 to -10 ly, etc. You'd have 40 to 50 ly; 30 to 40 ly; 20 to 30 ly, etc. In adition they could even make them into 3-d pictures where you either don 3-d glasses provided and the stars will appear to hover above the page, or the pictures could be holographic prints such as certain posters where the pictures appear 3-d without glasses.

 

[aramis]

Having been ACTUALLY READING THE RULEBOOKS last night, I discoverd references to borwn dwarves.

In the O2300U they are HARD TO FIND. Not ignored by the rules, but mentioned as hard to find, and not many of them around.

In the Real Universe, we know of quite a few by comparison.

And the cutoff gravity well for discharge is 0.1G, so even a large chunk could do it.

So, brown dwarves will change the astrography and history; if you include them, by definition of extant rules, you are changing the setting where they are known to exist, but can't be found readily.

Tom, the idea of the double sided map is nifty, but really, especially for D20-2300, worse than just ignoring the whole issue: the d20 version isn't a "Mechanical Heir" to the 2300 mechanics, and is SOLELY THE SETTING, grafted onto T20 mechanics. A setting which can not exist with known brown dwarves... as the geopolitical structures are linked to the hydraulic despotism of chokepoints, many of which becomme compromised by incusion of brown dwarves.


If there were a new version of 2300 mechanics coming out, it would be a great idea... for an "Alternate 2300 Univese".

2300 is an alternate universe. One much closer than, say, Traveller's OTU. but still an alternate.

History and Warfare about who can get to and hold a resource... change those baselines, you change the history and the warfare.

 

[TKalbfus]

Tom, the idea of the double sided map is nifty, but really, especially for D20-2300, worse than just ignoring the whole issue: the d20 version isn't a "Mechanical Heir" to the 2300 mechanics, and is SOLELY THE SETTING, grafted onto T20 mechanics. A setting which can not exist with known brown dwarves... as the geopolitical structures are linked to the hydraulic despotism of chokepoints, many of which becomme compromised by incusion of brown dwarves.

Is there a new version of 2300 coming out? It seems to me that 2300 is a setting, much like the Forgotten Realms is a setting. The rules are just a way to resolve combats and such. D20 is a popular combat system, it seems natural to use that combat system with a few tweaks to simulate 2300 GDW produced more RPG rules than you can shake a stick at and most of them were incopatible with each other and you had to remember that you do things differently in this system than in that system. The D20 smooths the entry into new settings. I really don't care how it is determined whether you hit or miss, or how much damage you can take. What I'm interested in is 2300 as a setting, and am not terribly interested in how combat is resolved. What matters to me are things important to the setting, such as how many stars there are, whether there are planets, how fast starships can travel, and what are the rules for starship movement. I thing the Near Star List could use some reorganization if there is an opportunity to republish 2300 under new rules. For one you can divide the star map up into 8 cubic sectors 50 light years on a side, and you can divide each sector into 8 subsectors 25 light years on a side. Each sector should contain roughly 80 stars on average and each subsector about 10 stars for a total of 64 subsectors. Now if the Near Star List is listed according to subsector, stars would be easier to find. A character in a starship would know which stars immediately surrounded him and which stars were closest. Under the old star listed you had to seach out the name of each star which is listed alphabetically and numerically, this is a time consuming process when the player asks for instance, "Which star systems can I travel to from this star?"

 

[aramis]

Originally posted by Tom Kalbfus:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> Tom, the idea of the double sided map is nifty, but really, especially for D20-2300, worse than just ignoring the whole issue: the d20 version isn't a "Mechanical Heir" to the 2300 mechanics, and is SOLELY THE SETTING, grafted onto T20 mechanics. A setting which can not exist with known brown dwarves... as the geopolitical structures are linked to the hydraulic despotism of chokepoints, many of which becomme compromised by incusion of brown dwarves.

Is there a new version of 2300 coming out? It seems to me that 2300 is a setting, much like the Forgotten Realms is a setting. The rules are just a way to resolve combats and such. [snip]</font>[/QUOTE]Yes, it's been announced that QLI is seeking (may have chosen) someone to do D20 2300, which will be an adjunct to T20. Now, the 2300 rules will also be reprinted soon... and this WILL be the original 2300 mechanics. So if both hit the market near each other, then there is a major problem if they don't jive on the setting.

As for "reorganizing" the NSL?
well, if you use the official 2300AD NSL, you merely need look at the map: all available system to system transits were plotted.

If you are adding the currently known brown dwarves, the whole map becomes problematic, as dozens of new links were added. I suspect the 7.7LY limit was chosen BECAUSE it created chokepoints and arms; I know that the guys had apple II's, and such a sort would be easily done with apple II's in basic. Slow, but easily doable.

7.7 seems to be odd in comparison to other GDW design decisions. Most of them are "Convinient Measures". 7.7 isn't convinient. 6.52 would have made sense (~ 2 parsecs), 4.26 (just enough to get to the Centauri System), 10 LY (nice round number), or even 8 LY (which changes little, but does open one chokepoint IIRC).

 

[TKalbfus]

Yes, it's been announced that QLI is seeking (may have chosen) someone to do D20 2300, which will be an adjunct to T20. Now, the 2300 rules will also be reprinted soon... and this WILL be the original 2300 mechanics. So if both hit the market near each other, then there is a major problem if they don't jive on the setting.

They are reprinting the original material. This is basically whats in the boxed set, which I already have, plus the 2300 Adventures all in book form. I still think the star data could stand to be reorganized into sectors and subsectors 50 light year and 25 light year cubes respectively. There are 8 pages of star data to sort through, and they are not arranged by proximity, but in alphabetic order, which means there could be 2 stars 3 light years apart, one begins with A and the other begins with Z. I kind of like the system in Classic Traveller where you have sectors and subsectors, except here you would have 3 dimensional cubes instead of flat hex maps. Also the stars listed as Companions does not specify the separations between the companion stars and the primaries. I'm sure that data is available in some astronomical data base. Otherwise the referee has to determine the separation randomly before generating the system. Now if future adventures are to be published, you need a common set of assumptions. A star system could result in a planet in an orbit where the actual companion star orbit would make it impossible. I think it wouldn't hurt to include that data.