The SMG has been found

[tbeard1999]

So we can all agree that the earliest mention of Aslan depicts them with human like hands and mentions retractable claws instead of jack knife style folding claws? I am not debating that Aslan got changed I am stating that I find the lion man Aslan, human hands and all, more believable than the later incarnation.

Well, your argument was originally that Aslan were little more than "lion-men", then were changed three years later into their current form.

That argument is not supported by the evidence. The Aslan evolved into pretty much their final form within a year of their first mention in Traveller canon. And the initial description of them in Twilight's Peak states that they are not "lion-men". And honestly, I'm not real convinced that "retractible" claws and "folding claws" are really contradictory.

In any case, given the incredible lengths you go to to rationalize far more glaring idiocies in MGT, your complaint seems strikingly petty.

By your logic shouldn't you be loving on MGT instead of bashing it non-stop. It may have took awhile but looks like CT has finally been finalized by mongoose games.

<yawn and scratch>

Someone who is apparently comfortable with shuriken catapults in Traveller seems ill placed to complain that Aslan claws might have changed slightly and that this fact somehow makes MGT a superior product to CT.

Regardless, I judge MGT and its supplements on their own merits. And so far, I see little to commend the game.

I think it was change for the sake of change which I am not a fan of.

Funny, that's what a lot of folks who don't like MGT say...

 

[The Hinterworlds Rambler]

So that's the role you're serving? To point out glaring idiocies? Interesting.

Jamus, I play both Traveller and Warhammer 40k. I don't give a rat's ass for complete scientific or military accuracy either, because its a game.

I've been playing MGT for a bit now, and it seems great to me. If you ever want to talk that stuff, PM me. I can't really talk on these MGT forums for too long before they close them. I don't know what purpose the hostile tone of these sort of conversations serve, either.

http://www.gasolinealleyantiques.com/transportation/images/Space Page/raygun-tracer-ammo.JPG

Whoa! The principles of impossibility!

 

[Allensh]

I don't necessarily object to plagiarism, but I do object to such lame and cut-rate plagiarism. I think it speaks volumes about the cluelessness (and aimlessness) of MGT when its military supplement contains crap like shuriken catapults...

And the sad fact is that there's no reason to play MGT if you want a WH40K style game. You could simply play Dark Heresy...

sure..if I could actually get a copy of the damn thing...

Allen

 

[MikeNGina]

Just one question.

What I really what to know is this. Does anyone still feel that "The SMG has been found"? Or does everyone agree that it hasn't??? If anyone still believes a carbine and a submachine gun are the same, I can only say re read the parts that are on subject.

 

[tbeard1999]

sure..if I could actually get a copy of the damn thing...

Allen

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/dark-heresy/products.shtml

And even if you couldn't, MGT is hardly the best system for it.

Given WH40K's science-fantasy setting, a fantasy RPG system makes far more sense than MGT.

 

[tbeard1999]

What I really what to know is this. Does anyone still feel that "The SMG has been found"? Or does everyone agree that it hasn't??? If anyone still believes a carbine and a submachine gun are the same, I can only say re read the parts that are on subject.

Clearly, the SMG has not been found. A "carbine" is a fundamentally different weapon than a SMG. I covered this previously, but it was drowned out by the surreal Aslan Thumb Claw Debate. Here are excepts:

Carbines--whether auto or semiauto--have historically been considered a different class of weapon than SMGs (anonymously sourced Wikipedia articles notwithstanding).

In general, carbines fall between rifles and SMGs in muzzle velocity, muzzle energy and barrel length. Consider some TL5-7 representative samples:

Rifle: M1 Garand, firing the .30-06 (7.62x63mm) round, 3894J muzzle energy, 24" barrel; M14, firing the 7.62x51mm round, 3352J muzzle energy, 22" barrel

Assault Rifle: M-16, firing the 5.56x45mm round, 1775J muzzle energy, 20" barrel

Carbine: M1/M2 Carbine, firing the .30 Carbine (7.62x33mm) round, 1190J muzzle energy, 18" barrel; M4 Carbine, firing the 5.56x45mm round, 16" barrel.

SMG: M3 "Grease Gun", firing the .45 ACP pistol round, 706J muzzle energy, 8" barrel; Thompson SMG, firing the .45ACP round, 10.5" barrel (some unsuccessful variants had longer barrels and different ammo); UZI, firing the 9x19mm parabellum round, 500J muzzle energy, 10.5" barrel.

Pistol: Colt M1911, firing the .45 ACP pistol round, 386-600J? muzzle energy, 3.5-5" barrel.

Many carbines fire pistol rounds, instead of special carbine rounds. Even though the ammunition is the same, such carbines generate significantly more muzzle energy than pistols or SMGs because of their significanly longer barrels. A TL5 example is the Marlin Model 1894 lever action carbine, which is chambered for .357 magnum, .44 magnum or .38 special pistol rounds. The Hi-Point 995 carbine (9x19mm), with 16.5" or 17.5" barrel (which even uses the same magazines as the Hi-Point 9mm pistol) is a TL7 example. The Berretta Cx4 Storm, with a 16.6" barrel is another example, using 9mm, .40 S&W or .45 ACP ammo and Baretta pistol magazines.

The development of assault rifles has caused some overlap with carbines. Assault rifles typically have 20" barrels, which makes them longer than carbines, but shorter than rifles. However, many assault rifles have 16" variants, which are also called "carbines". For instance, the M4 carbine, which is an M-16 with a 16.5" barrel.

However, assault rifles and their short barreled variants have significantly higher muzzle energy than other carbines -- ~1900J compared with ~1200J or less.

Modern submachineguns have *significantly* shorter barrels than carbines and usually fire pistol ammo (the 9x19mm round is popular). Representative weapons are the UZI (10.2" barrel) and the HK MP5 (5.5-8.9" barrel). Some new SMGs fire proprietary ammo, but the performance of the ammo is comparable to pistol ammo. Example--the FN P90, which fires a new 5.7x28mm bullet and has a 10.1" barrel (393-538J muzzle energy). Compare this to the M4 carbine, which fires a 5.56x45mm cartridge (with ~1900J muzzle energy) and has a 16" barrel.

Bottom line -- there are at least two characteristics that distinguish carbines from rifles and SMGs--barrel length and muzzle energy.

Rifles: 22"+ barrel; 3000J+ muzzle energy
Assault Rifles: 16-20" barrel; 1600J-2500J muzzle energy
Carbines: ~14-18"; 1000-1200J muzzle energy
SMGs: 5"-10.5"; 500-700J muzzle energy
Pistols: 2-5.5"; 200-500J muzzle energy (magnum revolvers range much higher)

Extrapolating from these characteristics and representative weapons, a carbine will have significantly greater effective range (~200m vs. ~50m for the SMG) than a SMG and significanrly higher stopping power. It will be heavier and less handy and will have slightly more recoil, unless firing pistol class ammo.

So I'm sorry, a "carbine" is not the same as a "submachinegun" and is not roughly comparable in capability. Yet another example of a purported game designer not bothering to educate himself on the subject, IMHO. MGT fans would do well to stop defending such oversights and simply ask that the designer do his job.

 

[MongooseMatt]

There's also the little problem that things like shuriken catapults are ridiculous weapons.

Right, now, let me explain your problem. . .

Shurikats are not ridiculous weapons per se - but they are very, very out of place in the OTU.

However, we said right from the start that it was our intention to 'de-provincialise' Traveller, getting a huge crowbar between rules and setting. The reason for this was a) we felt Traveller could be used for almost any science fiction setting and b) we intended to use it as our core science fiction system across multiple settings - and this is where the current Traveller rules will start to come truly alive, I believe.

Should Shurikats be placed on the OTU? Absolutely not, there is no one at Mongoose advocating that. Should they be allowed in other settings, within the context of Traveller rules? Well. . . why not? Whatever floats someone's boat, I say. If someone wants to emulate 40k with the Traveller urles (and why not?), then they absolutely should be in there.

The point of the 'core' books (those with black covers) is that they represent tool kits, allowing people to dive in and use whatever they want for whichever setting they are currently using. They are not intended to be used wholesale for any one single setting (though they can be - again, whatever floats you). Pick the bits you want, leave the rest for another day and another setting.

You may not _agree_ with this approach, but I hope you can understand why it is being adopted. And if others want to dot Shurikats around the Spinward Marches, well, more power to them, I say! It certainly won't make their games any less fun than yours!

 

[aramis]

Matt:
We understand it... we just feel it's stupid, verisimilitude-destroying, and credibility harming. Not to mention, very OBVIOUSLY drawn from WH40K.

They do NOT work well in reality. Those nice little toy disk guns: I've fired loads of them. Squirrely as a Rescue Rangers cartoon. No accuracy to speak of.

 

[mike wightman]

Sorry but the shurikat is a ridiculous weapon.

Traveller always did one thing right - it got guns.

Notice that the CT rules only included laser carbines and rifles, and they were backpack fed rather than SW or BG like blasters.

The gauss rifle introduces a bit more sci-fi, but is at least plausible tech. The plasma and fusion guns at low TLs are squad support weapons and only become personal firearms with the introduction of battledress and magitech at high TLs.

Can the blaster, the light sabre, the phaser, the shurikat, the various weapons from Strontium Dog be modelled using the Traveller rules?

Of course they can (I have done in the past).

Problem is basic weapons like the smg should be there before fantasy weapons that are setting specific, in a lot of people's opinion.

Mercenary, the CT version, is OTU canon. Mercenary the MgT version brakes with OTU.

 

[tbeard1999]

Right, now, let me explain your problem. . .

Shurikats are not ridiculous weapons per se - but they are very, very out of place in the OTU.

Any weapons-portable power supply capable of generating the energy necessary to fire 4" disks at lethal velocities would be FAR better used to fire much smaller projectiles (like bullets).

And of course, spinning discs are ballistically ill-suited for weaponry.

So in point of fact, they *are* ridiculous weapons in any game that has any pretense to plausibility. And one of the distinguishing characteristics of Traveller has been a keen focus on plauisibility (outside handwavium gadgets that are required for the genre like FTL and contragrav).

MGT -- particularly Mercenary -- abandons this focus, and does so in a particularly haphazard and ill-defined way. The designer of Mercenary couldn't get standard military weapons right, but felt it was necessary to steal shuriken catapults from WH40K? You gotta be kidding me.

If you guys want to create an illogical, "anything goes" SFRPG, filled with shuriken catapults, space elves, light sabers, dustbuster phasers, etc., then have at it. But calling it "Traveller" seems dishonest to me. For some 30+ years, "Traveller" has meant a relatively hard sci-fi RPG. If you're gonna deviate this dramatically, then I think you either call it something besides Traveller or admit on the cover that Traveller has been "reimagined".

But if you guys are gonna call it "Traveller", then I think it's fair to criticize serious deviations from the RPGs that have been called "Traveller" for the last 30 years.

However, we said right from the start that it was our intention to 'de-provincialise' Traveller, getting a huge crowbar between rules and setting.

Well, I guess that haphazardly plagiarizing WH40K would be the equivalent of a huge crowbar.

In any case, Mercenary is an embarrassment. It's badly written, apparently completely unedited, gets many basic facts wrong about normal weaponry and lifts dubious tech from other games. I sincerely hope you guys do better on subsequent supplements.

 

[tbeard1999]

Sorry but the shurikat is a ridiculous weapon.

Traveller always did one thing right - it got guns.

...Can the blaster, the light sabre, the phaser, the shurikat, the various weapons from Strontium Dog be modelled using the Traveller rules?

Of course they can (I have done in the past).

Problem is basic weapons like the smg should be there before fantasy weapons that are setting specific, in a lot of people's opinion.

Mercenary, the CT version, is OTU canon. Mercenary the MgT version brakes with OTU.

Yup; Traveller always did guns right. And it did so for the simple reason that guns are FAR more logical than most sci-fi weapons. Jedis, with their pretty lightsabers, would be helpless against troops armed with assault shotguns. In TV and movie sci-fi, pretty special effects, rather than plausibility, furnished the rationale for sci-fi weapons. It's interesting that the trend has been to return guns to sci-fi.

As you note, ridiculous weapons are highly setting specific, and their haphazard inclusion in a SFRPG does a disservice to fans, especially when the game fails to adequately cover basic guns...

 

[Jamus]

Any weapons-portable power supply capable of generating the energy necessary to fire 4" disks at lethal velocities would be FAR better used to fire much smaller projectiles (like bullets)..

The Eldar Shurikan catapult fires disks that are about 3/4 of an inch or so at high velocity using magnetism. Other than the shape of the projectile how is it any different than a gauss rifle?

And of course, spinning discs are ballistically ill-suited for weaponry.

The shurikat is not a long range weapon. It is a close assault weapon that spews forth hundreds if not thousands of disks per minute. Eldar use these weapons in mass to achieve fire power supremacy at close range. Eldar snipers use a high powered laser rifle.

So in point of fact, they *are* ridiculous weapons in any game that has any pretense to plausibility. And one of the distinguishing characteristics of Traveller has been a keen focus on plauisibility (outside handwavium gadgets that are required for the genre like FTL and contragrav).

Or most stars being exactly one parcec from its neighbor or the fact that space is apparently flat? you cant scream for hard science while excusing artificial grav which is probably the most unrealistic thing in any genre.

MGT -- particularly Mercenary -- abandons this focus, and does so in a particularly haphazard and ill-defined way. The designer of Mercenary couldn't get standard military weapons right, but felt it was necessary to steal shuriken catapults from WH40K? You gotta be kidding me.

You couldnt get standard weapons right. Werent you argueing that no one ever fired a LMG on the move while standing? No military trained such a thing? Most of this is just opinion.

If you guys want to create an illogical, "anything goes" SFRPG, filled with shuriken catapults, space elves, light sabers, dustbuster phasers, etc., then have at it. But calling it "Traveller" seems dishonest to me. For some 30+ years, "Traveller" has meant a relatively hard sci-fi RPG. If you're gonna deviate this dramatically, then I think you either call it something besides Traveller or admit on the cover that Traveller has been "reimagined".

But if you guys are gonna call it "Traveller", then I think it's fair to criticize serious deviations from the RPGs that have been called "Traveller" for the last 30 years.

Maybe these changes will help Traveller grow and become more than a niche market game generally dominated by grognards and people who are overly nastalgic. Traveller was very near to being a dead system before T20 and MGT and of the two MGT is performing better as far as sales and follow up support. I would like to know if MGThas already sold near or more than the other versions. Also the new vision is to put as many different rules options into the core books so that players and refs can pick and choose which type of FTL they prefer and which weapons they want to use. I like that alot. I am half tempted to do a hard science campaign with no anti-grav / artificial grav. Maybe use the star frontiers setting.

That would be fun. Maybe Mongoose can convince WotC to allow them to publish a Star Frontiers setting book for use with MGT.

Well, I guess that haphazardly plagiarizing WH40K would be the equivalent of a huge crowbar.

Like how CT plagiarized Asimov, Heinlein, CJ Cherryh and many others? Where to we draw the line?

In any case, Mercenary is an embarrassment. It's badly written, apparently completely unedited, gets many basic facts wrong about normal weaponry and lifts dubious tech from other games. I sincerely hope you guys do better on subsequent supplements.

I like MGT Mercenary and plan to use it with my MGT games.

BTW Yazarians are what a pouncer preditor evolved from a tree dwelling ancestor would be like. and unlike Aslan they have primate hands and prehensile toes. Yazarians are very much more believable than central thumbed non-cat like cat men.

And dralasites are maybe the coolest alien ever.

 

[Jamus]

Yup; Traveller always did guns right. And it did so for the simple reason that guns are FAR more logical than most sci-fi weapons. Jedis, with their pretty lightsabers, would be helpless against troops armed with assault shotguns. In TV and movie sci-fi, pretty special effects, rather than plausibility, furnished the rationale for sci-fi weapons. It's interesting that the trend has been to return guns to sci-fi.

As you note, ridiculous weapons are highly setting specific, and their haphazard inclusion in a SFRPG does a disservice to fans, especially when the game fails to adequately cover basic guns...

Traveller, especially CT never did guns right. The damage verse armor matrix was ridiculous and the fact that the assault rifle was added later as were most of what would be considered modern fire arms. You guys are attacking shurikats as unrealistic in a setting where marines learn to fight with a cutlass. Artificial gravity is so common that it isnt even factored into a ships construction or energy consumption and somehow doesnt generate mass, and psionics are not unheard of.

I guess you guys would argue that the Droyne desintigrator is also ridiculous? It is a OTU weapon. Anti matter rifle anyone? Anti-matter battery powered lantern? Intelligent silicon chip. Maybe KKree in giant space saucers is kind of ridiculous also? I personally feel that intelligent herbivores are kinda a hard sale to be honest and never used them in MTU. The difference between primate and intelligent human was consumption of meat. Seems like that would be true of any carbon based life form. I wonder in what world a cow could develop opposable digits on a third set of limbs and intelligence. Seems less plausable than shurikats.

 

[mike wightman]

And dralasites are maybe the coolest alien ever.

Pentapods.

 

[mike wightman]

Traveller, especially CT never did guns right. The damage verse armor matrix was ridiculous and the fact that the assault rifle was added later as were most of what would be considered modern fire arms. You guys are attacking shurikats as unrealistic in a setting where marines learn to fight with a cutlass. Artificial gravity is so common that it isnt even factored into a ships construction or energy consumption and somehow doesnt generate mass, and psionics are not unheard of.

I guess you guys would argue that the Droyne desintigrator is also ridiculous? It is a OTU weapon. Anti matter rifle anyone? Anti-matter battery powered lantern? Intelligent silicon chip. Maybe KKree in giant space saucers is kind of ridiculous also? I personally feel that intelligent herbivores are kinda a hard sale to be honest and never used them in MTU. The difference between primate and intelligent human was consumption of meat. Seems like that would be true of any carbon based life form. I wonder in what world a cow could develop opposable digits on a third set of limbs and intelligence. Seems less plausable than shurikats.

:rofl:

Your post has its merits - a lot of Traveller is sci-fantasy.

But they did do weapons right, the original weapon matrices show the wargame heritage, and don't forget that GDW were a wargame company first. They chose the weapons to include as the ones most likely for pcs to end up using. LBB4 introduced the more military only type weapons.

The shurikat is balistically implausable with the laws of physics we have in the real world. Note that Traveller doesn't have gravpowered projectiles fired from handguns - although you could postulate them and thus have the knife missile from the Culture.

But a spinning disc as a high velocity non-guided, non-smart round? Nope.

 

[Jamus]

Pentapods were cool also. Actually most of the 2300 aliens were really neat. I have often thought about working them into the traveller setting but it throws the whole minor verse major race thing out the window. Then again Aslan could technically be a minor race also so...

 

[coliver988]

...I personally feel that intelligent herbivores are kinda a hard sale to be honest and never used them in MTU. The difference between primate and intelligent human was consumption of meat. Seems like that would be true of any carbon based life form. I wonder in what world a cow could develop opposable digits on a third set of limbs and intelligence. Seems less plausable than shurikats.

I got back out of this conversation as it was way off target from the original question (which I have to agree is no, it still has not been found, based on the arguments here, but I am not a weapons-type person).

But...I just find it interesting that you continue to assume that intelligent life can ONLY follow the pattern on Earth. A single datapoint is insufficient to determine what can happen everywhere in this wonderfully large universe. I can see the need for herbivores to gain intelligence depending on food supplies, predators and factors that we may know nothing about. Just because it apparently has not happened here is no indication for or against it happening anywhere else.

Just my 0.02Cr on this. And now back to SMG discussions...if you do want to continue talking about evolutionary development I suggest you start a new thread. It would be interesting and let this topic remain, err, on-topic.

 

[tbeard1999]

The Eldar Shurikan catapult fires disks that are about 3/4 of an inch or so at high velocity using magnetism. Other than the shape of the projectile how is it any different than a gauss rifle?

The weapons in Mercenary fire 2" discs. And other than the shape of the projectile, I wouldn't know, since the technical descriptions is mostly technobabble.

In any case, the point remains--any weapon capable of accelerating a 2" steel disc to lethal velocities would be FAR better used to fire bullets.

As does the other point that discs are ballistically unsuitable for ranged weapon fire.

You couldnt get standard weapons right. Werent you argueing that no one ever fired a LMG on the move while standing? No military trained such a thing? Most of this is just opinion.

Uh, nope, I never said such a thing.

Maybe these changes will help Traveller grow and become more than a niche market game generally dominated by grognards and people who are overly nastalgic.

Yeah, I was just saying yesterday that what Traveller really needs is a hodgepodge of improbable, implausible, ridiculous weaponry lifted from science fantasy sources like WH40K.

 

[Jamus]

But a spinning disc as a high velocity non-guided, non-smart round? Nope.

What tech lvl are we talking? In 40K eldar are one of if not the most tech advanced culture in the galaxy. maybe some sort of gyro stabilization on each disk? I will agree that it seems like alot of work for something that could be done with a simple bullet but maybe its some sort of cultural thing.

 

[tbeard1999]

Traveller, especially CT never did guns right. The damage verse armor matrix was ridiculous and the fact that the assault rifle was added later as were most of what would be considered modern fire arms.

While I'm no fan of the CT combat system, it did work and was perfectly usable. And Snapshot, Azhanti High Lightning and Striker surpassed anything done by MGT.

Something that you continue to miss is the fact that CT insisted upon weapons whose scientific principles were understood and reasonable (even if the gear was beyond current manufacturing capabilities):

"Why Guns, And Not Disintegrators?

...Projectile throwing weapons dominate the table because we feel that, until the distant future, they will be the most efficient means of one man damaging another.

Traveller has tried to have a sound scientific basis for its rules. Stunners, blasters, and Uranium Q - 37 atomic space modulators are very spectacular, and for this reason comic books and movies make extensive use of them. When examined more closely, however, most of the weaponry people think of when you say science fiction is very unsound scientifically, and those which aren't are incredibly inefficient on such a small scale. Let us consider, the phaser from Star Trek. The phaser can be set to disintegrate, to stun, to induce heat, or to explode. It was created by Hollywood to make a good showing on film, and to prevent the writers from having to think too much about weapons, but upon a little deeper consideration, it falls apart.

A scientific basis can be developed for the disintegrator (see Mercenary, p 42, under Nuclear Dampers), but only at an extremely high level of technological development. Even then, it would be extremely bulky, and require large amounts of power. There are a couple of good explanations of how a stunner could work (Larry Niven's ultrasonic stunner, for instance) but power once again must be considered. Microwave radiation will induce heat in some substances, but not in rocks, as has been done on various episodes. There is no problem developing a basis for explosives, but why anyone would want a pistol that was also a hand grenade is beyond me.

Lasers, masers and particle beams are certain to figure significantly in the weaponry of the future, but they will not take the form most people think of.

Energy weapons of this sort are capable of doing great damage, but they have several disadvantages. First, as their name suggests, they require great amounts of energy. For the near future, at least, such weapons will be vehicle mounted, in order for their power supply to be able to accompany them. Second, being beams, these weapons are limited to line-of-sight targets. If the man you want to kill runs behind a hill, you're going to have trouble hitting him. Third, for quite some time to come, weapons of this type will be very bulky.

On the personal, hand-carried level, projectile weapons are going to be with us for a long time to come. Conventional firearms cartridges are very efficient
storage cells of energy, and improvements in them are sure to continue for many years. Individual soldiers (and civilians too) will continue to carry firearms
until some more efficient, relatively inexpensive means of energy storage can be developed;and this is not likely to occur in the near future. -- Marc Miller, JTAS #4

Of course CT didn't always have the best mechanics for guns, but at least it tried to develop plausible technology by extrapolating from what we know about physics and warfare.

MGT didn't even make the effort.

And as noted, I judge MGT on its own merits (or lack thereof).

Oh, and here was Marc's answer as to why Imperial Marines trained in the use of cutlasses:

"...[T]radition and esprit de corps can be used to justify the inclusion of some blade training. Perhaps arbitrarily, 4 marines in Traveller receive training in the cutlass as a service skill; it's justified as a morale-building effort, like bayonet training in the US army. (I received bayonet training, hell, I gave bayonet training, and the army hasn't used bayonets in any real action since 1918) Officers in armies all over the world were taught fencing long after it ceased to have any military significance. Over and above all of this, some training is still given in the use of the knife because it is still one of the more efficient ways to kill silently, always of use to commandos and the like.

Finally, both players and referees should keep in mind that old fashioned weapons are not really designed with the idea that characters will depend on them for their lives. Guns, even without skill, are more efficient in most situations and can be used to great effect. Blade skill is a background skill, and should be put to good use only where it is needed."

Sounds reasonable to me. These posts imply that a great deal of thought went into Traveller weaponry. Far more than the "what's a submachinegun, hey let's use the kewl 40K wargear!!!" attitude implied by MGT Mercenary.

In the pages of the JTAS, you can read extensive scientific analyses of the particle accelerators and meson guns that formed the main weapons of High Guard (JTAS 13). Again, a serious attempt to project what future weapons and warfare might look like. And again, something totally missing from MGT.

BTW Yazarians are what a pouncer preditor evolved from a tree dwelling ancestor would be like. and unlike Aslan they have primate hands and prehensile toes. Yazarians are very much more believable than central thumbed non-cat like cat men.

And dralasites are maybe the coolest alien ever.

Then play Star Frontiers, then. It's okay with me.

(I should add that I am not one of those folks filled with "Aliens must truly be alien" angst. One of my favorite campaigns included the Bulrathi, a race of intelligent bears lifted from Space Marines and Master of Orion v1. So I really couldn't care less about whether Aslan have retractable claws...)