What about deck plans for the "Tigress" class Dreadnaught?
Traveller products I'd like to see...
- Thread starter The Thing
- Start date
What about deck plans for the "Tigress" class Dreadnaught?
I know a couple of other things I'd love to see.
One would be the DGP Traveller material in PDF's. Yes, I know from what I have read here that is not likely, but maybe we can try again.
The other would be PDF's of the Paranoia Press publications. I don't know who owns the copyrights there but they would be nice to have too.
It looks like Marc is working on FASA and Gamelords right now and it will be nice to see them added to the list
One would be the DGP Traveller material in PDF's. Yes, I know from what I have read here that is not likely, but maybe we can try again.
The other would be PDF's of the Paranoia Press publications. I don't know who owns the copyrights there but they would be nice to have too.
It looks like Marc is working on FASA and Gamelords right now and it will be nice to see them added to the list
Fritz_Brown
Super Moderator
Yes, I too would love to see both those products in PDF. Especially since 101 Robots just went for $100 on eBay, and a lot with the Paranoia Press stuff just went for $250. 
hunter
Ancient - Absent Friend
Oy vey...good luck. I tried like hell...
far-trader
SOC-14 10K
Pity the local CotI "Starports" project seems dead, it had (iirc) good coverage of bases worked into it. I might dig up my own notes once the RTT thing gets going and put it out. If I can find time and get organized enough, better odds of me winning the lotto jackpot
<sigh>
There's nothing wrong with Traveller starship computers you know. There's a citizen with the perfect sentiment in their sig, something like what I've been saying for ages, they aren't home computers, they're military computers/electronics hardware and they ARE big!<sigh>
I like what TNE did with computers. They did the only sane thing that could be done with computers.
They pretty much completely eliminated them, and simply stuck with workstations.
They also removed the computer mechanic from combat (which is the only reason anybody cares about computers in the first place).
I don't care if they're "military" computers. Many miltary computers are large because they were designed in 1975. The military tends to hang on to their hardware long past the expired date.
The computers within the modern fighting vehicles are powerful and tiny. Your modern Ford has more MIPS of processing power than WWII. The whole War.
Seriously:
http://www.calvin.edu/~adams/research/microwulf/
26+ Gflops (Giga Flops, Billion Floating Point Operations per Second).
11" x 12" x 17", .04 cubic METERS. Itty Bitty in Starship Terms. .003 DTons!
For a 1 TFlop (Tera Flop, Trillion...), a machine 30 times faster than this, 3.8 cubic meters.
Now, I don't know where you get your TFlops, but when I get mine I can hardly fit them in my truck. A TFlop is a big (really big) number of calculations.
I don't know how many gazintas go in to a Jump calc (which can be handwaved to require as many calcs as you like), but I think it's safe to say that for every other bit a math a ship might want to do, I think a machine with a capacity of several Gflops (not to mention a TFlop) will be more than adequate for the task. We got to the moon with a slide rule for crying out loud.
Now if you want to see some CPU power in 2.5 Dtons, then gander at this:
http://www.sun.com/emrkt/blackbox/index.jsp
700 CPUs, 2000 cores. (They achieved the 1 TFlop number on 64 CPUs, just FYI and all.) Holy Heat Pump!
So, sorry, nobody can convince me in any way shape or form the justifications for the computer size in Traveler. The math is NOT that hard.
Hmmm, maybe explain to him that he might make some money off the disks. better some cash then the stuff just sitting there.
hunter
Ancient - Absent Friend
You're right I should have explained to him he could make money off of it. Why didn't I think of that?! :smirk:
hunter
Ancient - Absent Friend
Now add in every terminal, all of the wiring, the sensor and communications system interfaces, space to access the terminal and use, etc. to run an entire ship and give me the approximate tonnage that encompasses. When you start factoring that in, computers don't look all that big. That's the way I look at Traveller computers. It's not representing the CPU, rather the entire networked system aboard the ship.
Was this the original vision? Hardly. Is it perfect? No. Does it work? For the most part. Could it be improved? Definitely. Do I want to calculate every terminal, terminal access space, wiring requirements, etc.? Hell no.
There are several out on the net for free. Unfortunately it's been years since I downloaded the one I use so I don't remember where I got it from but off the top of my head I'd recommend checking out the Freelance Traveller site.
mbrinkhues
SOC-14 1K
That cluster is cute. Until the first power loss, power spike or fan burnout. Then it's bye bye my ship. Not to mention that even today the PC-bus system is far too slow for decend data gathering. You either need Memory-Programmable Controlers (i.e Siemens S5 or S7 series) or specialist hardware.
And if you add all the necessary redundancy, hot-plugs, surge dampers etc. even an early 2000s fault-redundant control system is still no smaller (actually it's bigger) than The boys (Similar configuration, sadly I have no photo of them)
The follow-up system using PC-hardware actually comes in four Rital-containers of the same width/depth but double height as the shown boxes.
And if you add all the necessary redundancy, hot-plugs, surge dampers etc. even an early 2000s fault-redundant control system is still no smaller (actually it's bigger) than The boys (Similar configuration, sadly I have no photo of them)
The follow-up system using PC-hardware actually comes in four Rital-containers of the same width/depth but double height as the shown boxes.
far-trader
SOC-14 10K
And you don't think the millennial spanning anally retentive Imperium is even more hardcore about not changing a good thing
Not trying to, really, and I can't be convinced of the opposite
It's not the math that bugs me, it's the logic. No matter how advanced you write the computer rule today, it'll be obsolete tomorrow. As for the math, who's to say how much computing power is needed for safely cracking and travelling through jump space. Note that you don't need a computer for a non-jump ship in CT except to fire weapons (which does seem silly to me but that's a whole other thing). And the computer rules for ships are more a game balance component than an approximation of reality.
I always laugh and wonder when I see complaints about the ship computer rules by computer experts if those same people who think they are too big complained that the Hand Computer was too small? There is no way you could build that back in '77, a time best exemplified by such statements as "640K ought to be enough for anybody." It's always seemed a bit of a double standard to me.
Big "Computers"
I always assumed the computer was for everything including racks and access to swap parts and so on. I've seen what we put on mine sites and most of the space/weight was insulation and aircon.
The one item that would make these things big and heavy would be a decent UPS. The last unit I had put in weighed ~750 kg and that was for a single room.
I always assumed the computer was for everything including racks and access to swap parts and so on. I've seen what we put on mine sites and most of the space/weight was insulation and aircon.
The one item that would make these things big and heavy would be a decent UPS. The last unit I had put in weighed ~750 kg and that was for a single room.
I always assumed a UPS, and micro-vacuum-tube components for EMP resistance/resilience. Shure, it will conk out on an emp. But it will recover in a couple minutes.
Sorry for sounding so rude, Hunter. My GF's 81 yr old mom had a bad weekend and had just gotten back from the nursing home thinking she wasn't going to make it. I wasn't thinking too clearly when I wrote that and I apologise to you and the rest of the board.
However all came out well. The Good Lord came through for us and brought up Mom's stubborn streak, that plus a healthy dose of modern medicine. She is doing very well now.
Wonder if Stewie would let us borrow his mind control machine?
At one point in MTU I created a large luxury liner based on the Titanic. It was 252m long at the longest point by 28.5 meters wide with 10 decks. I never really figured out the exact tonnage but it's pretty big. I didn't design it for the players to actually operate. It had a few hundred staterooms a couple reception areas, saloons, restaurants, basically everything you'd find on a modern cruise ship...pool, hottubs, rec rooms, etc.
I also never actually figured out if the mechanics and size actually fit into any canon material. I just saw some deck plans of the Titanic and adapted them into a starship. The players didn't operate it, they were security for the ship and all the adventures stemmed from that so I wasn't really concerned if this huge ship actually could do a jump-4 or how much profit it made.
Occasionally I think I should go dig the plans out of the box in the basement and figure out where to put them on the web but I never get around to it.
http://www.evernightgame.com
mad13142000
SOC-13
It's not just one computer for your ship. Each system has 2 or 3 BACKUP SYSTEMS that add to the size. With all of the assorted subsystems, I think the CT computer rule will hold up well when we actually get into a jumpship.
Now not having an AI to control all that mess... :devil:
(Or we could really derail this topic and talk about the absurd requirement for FUEL)
But I want a definitive book on ships encountered in the 3I. Current OTU is like driving around in 1970's East Germany. There is a scout ship, a free trader, a Far trader.... one of each niche type of ship made by the quadrillions across known space. ALL THE SAME... <sigh> How many different type of cars can you find on a US highway?!? PLEASE.
I also want a 3rd survey... A REALLY GOOD ONE.
-MADDog
Now not having an AI to control all that mess... :devil:
(Or we could really derail this topic and talk about the absurd requirement for FUEL)
But I want a definitive book on ships encountered in the 3I. Current OTU is like driving around in 1970's East Germany. There is a scout ship, a free trader, a Far trader.... one of each niche type of ship made by the quadrillions across known space. ALL THE SAME... <sigh> How many different type of cars can you find on a US highway?!? PLEASE.
I also want a 3rd survey... A REALLY GOOD ONE.
-MADDog
