Don--
Re: my previous message, this one confuses me some more.
First, the reference to "FFE has OFFICIALLY made...changes" fits with my
"retired Traveller guy, expired ID, IMTU I'd do..." thought from my
previous message. Then you note that T5 includes 1201 data, which I was
not aware of (I've been out of the loop for a while), as prior to this TNE
had been pretty much repudiated, but based on your first para about the
official stellar changes, the published TNE stellar changes weren't
official anyway.
So I'm back to wondering, with reference to your request for thoughts,
notes, old materials I might have, what it matters what I think. I'm not
trying to be difficult, it just doesn't make sense to me.
Dave
> I might note that for T5, FFE has OFFICIALLY made both stellar changes
and
> world changes. Some of this has made its way into Mongoose materials.
>
> Mike has seen at least the Marches changes (since the T5 data we're
releasing has datasets for 1065, 1105, 1117, 1201 and 1248)...
>
> Is there a sector you're specifically interested in?
>
>
>
> --- In , dcndcn13@... wrote:
>> I'll intersperse my replies in ALL CAPS so you can find them more
easily.
>> No, I'm not yelling. :-)
>> > I get this ml in digest mode so I'm just selecting the bits I want to
>> reply to.
>> >
>> > Dave wrote:
>> > 1. Just out of curiosity, what did the folks on this list think of
>> that?
>> I don't think I had any choice.
>> >
>> > 2. Did subsequent editions of Traveller hang onto the star changes,
or
>> stick with the DGP computer run?
>> > +++++
>> > 1. I agree with the sentiment that anything that improves the reality
>> of
>> the setting is a good thing. I've tried to update the stellar data on
my
>> website as I've had time.
>> >
>> > 2. As Mike pointed out, 1248 incorporated the stellar changes.
=========================
>> >
>> > Dave wrote:
>> > Lastly, this dovetails full circle into "collapsing worlds" with
>> Virus.
>> This was something Frank was really adamant about, getting rid of all
of
>> the marginal worlds where you had to come up with all kinds of
>> complicated
>> > rationalizations for how people were living there at all, much less
by
>> the
>> > billions. And I think his reason for this was really largely
>> aesthetic,
>> that it didn't make sense when you looked at it at the gross level.
With
>> jump drives, where we'd already established that starships run around
with
>> > holds full of low-cost junk from world-to-world, we have Cheap
Travel.
>> So
>> > why do so many people stay on deadly worlds? Didn't make no sense.
But
>> it
>> > also had the effect of pruning out of TNE the need to run adventures
>> on
>> so
>> > many worlds where you had to spend so much time explaining how people
>> could
>> > even live there to begin with.
>> > +++++++
>> > It was indeed a conundrum and I've tried to argue in their favor.
I've
>> tried to make up planetary histories based on this. I've suggested
"relaxed laws" and "lots of jobs" to explain large pop nasty worlds and
"allergens" and "eco-freaks" on low pop nice worlds. However, I was
typically unsuccessful in convincing others that I argued with. =) YEAH,
HENCE OUR CHOICE. JOHN EXCELLENTLY ARTICULATED THE GOOD SIDE OF THIS
>> ENFORCED CREATIVITY, BUT AS YOU OBSERVE, IT DIDN'T ALWAYS WORK.
>> >
>> > But what I've done to help out the garden worlds around cold stars
>> problem is that I've been upgrading the stars. I use a modified version
of Nick Bradbeer's World Tamer's spreadsheet (mine has interpolated
stellar data to fill in the gaps between 0 and 5 and up to 9) to tweak the
star to get a mean average temp that can make the trade remarks like
>> "agricultural" and "water world" feasible.
>> YEAH, THAT'S WHAT WE DID. LOTS OF Fs AND Gs POPPING UP AROUND AGRO AND
HI-POP WORLDS. JUST USE THE HABITABILITY ZONE TABLES TO PICK ONE THAT WORKS.
>> > =========================
>> >
>> > Mike wrote:
>> > Because of the mistaken generation routines, there were actually no
>> white dwarfs in the data at all. All of the "dwarf" stars where type
"D"
>> with a spectral class. While that was a mistake, it was a tremendous
boon to me, as that meant I could just take the mistaken spectral class
and change the type to "V". That fixed 95%+ of the problems.
>> (Well,
>> > not really. But it did get me close enough to ignore any remaining
>> problems in that 95%.) The last little bit could legitimately have been
white dwarf stars, so I just deleted the spectral class and left the "D".
>> > ++++++++
>> > I've been trying to clean up the spectral data on my website, but as
>> my
>> time is limited, I only work on the sectors that my players are
actively
>> gaming in. I think I might still have too many loose D's running around
as too many M#D may have been made into straight D instead of V. THE
INTENT WITH OUR FIX WAS THAT M#D SHOULD HAVE BECOME AT LEAST VII or VIII,
BUT AS MIKE POINTED OUT, MAYBE WE DIDN'T CATCH THEM ALL. WHICH DISAPPOINTS
ME, BUT IT IS HARD WORK DEALING WITH THE TRAVELLER
ADDICTION
>> TO THESE LONG STRINGS OF GRAMMAR-LESS CHARACTERS. YOU HAVE TO LOOK AT
EACH
>> DIGIT AND THINK ABOUT IT, AND A SINGLE TYPO HAS HUGE REPERCUSSIONS.
===========================
>> >
>> > Mike wrote:
>> > (Hey, I didn't understand all of this stuff until I needed to learn
it
>> for Spinward States, and then I got to ask Constantine a lot of
questions,
>> > which helped, as this is his actual area of real-life expertise!)
>> ++++++++
>> > Yeah, he's been very helpful there.
>> >
>> > Mike wrote:
>> > The one fix I didn't make was to world sizes. I really wanted to fix
>> world sizes where the atmosphere was type 4-9 so that the minimum
planet
>> size would be 5. (That is the minimum size required for a planet to
retain an oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere. Smaller than that, and the
atmosphere leaks out leaving a planet like Mars.)
>> > +++++++++
>> > That's a new one that I've just begun to incorporate. Again, I'm only
>> doing it for subsectors where my campaigns are active. I make a world
by
>> world decision as to whether to bump up the world size or keep it and
discard the atmosphere. I typically opt to bump up the world size as it
also helps with the whole issue of gravity. As a GM, I'm pretty good at
keeping players aware of temp and atmosphere type, but I tend to forget
about gravity.
>> LIKE I SAID, I DID NOT MESS WITH THE FIRST THREE. I FELT THAT WAS MORE
INTRUSIVE THAN I WANTED TO BE.
>> >
>> > \_/
>> > DED
>> > TNE @ Yahoo ml Admin
>> >
>
>
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