Thank you, sir!
What people consistently fail to appreciate is that while we may have
missed a little on M16s and M1A1s, our TL 12+ stuff comes out to the gram,
mm, and microjoule, no exceptions. There are letters that will have been
published in 1000 years that attest to that, keep an eye out for them
should you live that long.
> I am still rather impressed with how accurate Fire, Fusion, and Steel is.
> The fun is in optimizing.
>
> On Mon, Feb 23, 2015, 12:28 Harold Hale
> [Traveller_TNE] <> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> "Duh" also gets us into areas where we can talk about priorities 20
>> years
>> ago (e.g. how much time was wasted on "Dangerous Journey/Dimensions"
>> development that could have gone to other product development that
>> wouldn't
>> have caused TSR to get all crampy and reach for their lawyers rather
>> than
>> settling for Midol...?), what freelance writer resources were available
>> at
>> the time to increase the workforce pool (people willing to work on the
>> cheap, not that $20k a year wasn't an embarrassing small amount of money
>> even back then), etc. It's a cool discussion to have over a couple of
>> beers
>> in 2015, but not something that's really worth going "full Guatney" over
>> on
>> the Internet anymore. Actually, one of the few regrets I have about
>> that
>> whole era (aside from almost breaking the GDW fax machine and running it
>> out of paper with submissions) was spending far too much time *talking
>> about* writing and not enough time actually *doing* it, particularly
>> with
>> the likes of Guatney.
>>
>> Of course it was always going to be impossible to come up with a book
>> for
>> designing "everything" and even more impossible to design everything
>> perfectly, not even Steve Jackson Games has managed that, though lord
>> knows
>> they've probably tried at various points and had considerably more
>> resources in terms of staff and such to pull it off. Really, it's a
>> three
>> part problem. Players and most GMs would have been perfectly happy with
>> a
>> catalog of "low tech" stuff that was essentially nothing more than
>> everything out of T:2000, 2nd ed. re-branded for the sci-fi setting with
>> some additional add-ons (rifle for your scope, longer range antennas,
>> etc.). A separate catalog with high tech stuff (beyond what was
>> presented
>> in the RCES Equipment Guide) and they would have been golden. Some GMs
>> like to design their own campaign critical stuff from scratch and FF&S
>> does
>> a good job there. For writers though...particularly those of us who
>> wanted
>> to get published, the details mattered. I personally went on full
>> crusade
>> about how the stellar generation system was broken and proposed fixes.
>> We
>> nagged about "nerfed" energy weapons....and M16s. Well, others did, I
>> was
>> busy designing TL 12 gauss rifle equivalents of the AK-47. It turned
>> out
>> pretty well.
>>
>> If it seemed like people were giving GDW way too much flak about little
>> things, it was because we cared. Consider it a compliment. If TNE
>> wasn't
>> something we cared about, we could have easily joined the ranks of the
>> "luddites" that thought that High Guard might have added a little too
>> much
>> complexity to their "perfect" game.
>>
>> Now see I'm off in the weeds, Droynes...hmm...yeah kinda cool.
>>
>>
>
What people consistently fail to appreciate is that while we may have
missed a little on M16s and M1A1s, our TL 12+ stuff comes out to the gram,
mm, and microjoule, no exceptions. There are letters that will have been
published in 1000 years that attest to that, keep an eye out for them
should you live that long.
> I am still rather impressed with how accurate Fire, Fusion, and Steel is.
> The fun is in optimizing.
>
> On Mon, Feb 23, 2015, 12:28 Harold Hale
> [Traveller_TNE] <> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> "Duh" also gets us into areas where we can talk about priorities 20
>> years
>> ago (e.g. how much time was wasted on "Dangerous Journey/Dimensions"
>> development that could have gone to other product development that
>> wouldn't
>> have caused TSR to get all crampy and reach for their lawyers rather
>> than
>> settling for Midol...?), what freelance writer resources were available
>> at
>> the time to increase the workforce pool (people willing to work on the
>> cheap, not that $20k a year wasn't an embarrassing small amount of money
>> even back then), etc. It's a cool discussion to have over a couple of
>> beers
>> in 2015, but not something that's really worth going "full Guatney" over
>> on
>> the Internet anymore. Actually, one of the few regrets I have about
>> that
>> whole era (aside from almost breaking the GDW fax machine and running it
>> out of paper with submissions) was spending far too much time *talking
>> about* writing and not enough time actually *doing* it, particularly
>> with
>> the likes of Guatney.
>>
>> Of course it was always going to be impossible to come up with a book
>> for
>> designing "everything" and even more impossible to design everything
>> perfectly, not even Steve Jackson Games has managed that, though lord
>> knows
>> they've probably tried at various points and had considerably more
>> resources in terms of staff and such to pull it off. Really, it's a
>> three
>> part problem. Players and most GMs would have been perfectly happy with
>> a
>> catalog of "low tech" stuff that was essentially nothing more than
>> everything out of T:2000, 2nd ed. re-branded for the sci-fi setting with
>> some additional add-ons (rifle for your scope, longer range antennas,
>> etc.). A separate catalog with high tech stuff (beyond what was
>> presented
>> in the RCES Equipment Guide) and they would have been golden. Some GMs
>> like to design their own campaign critical stuff from scratch and FF&S
>> does
>> a good job there. For writers though...particularly those of us who
>> wanted
>> to get published, the details mattered. I personally went on full
>> crusade
>> about how the stellar generation system was broken and proposed fixes.
>> We
>> nagged about "nerfed" energy weapons....and M16s. Well, others did, I
>> was
>> busy designing TL 12 gauss rifle equivalents of the AK-47. It turned
>> out
>> pretty well.
>>
>> If it seemed like people were giving GDW way too much flak about little
>> things, it was because we cared. Consider it a compliment. If TNE
>> wasn't
>> something we cared about, we could have easily joined the ranks of the
>> "luddites" that thought that High Guard might have added a little too
>> much
>> complexity to their "perfect" game.
>>
>> Now see I'm off in the weeds, Droynes...hmm...yeah kinda cool.
>>
>>
>