Date: Sat, 29 Apr 89 00:01 PST

From: ("Scott, part time fuzzy") SELLSWORTH%xxxxxx@cunyvm.cuny.edu

Subject: A few foulups

Archive-Message-Number: 329

  Call this letter a kind of mixed bag...

  1.  You folks working on system generation:I love it.  I have no real

contributions to add since James' programs do more than the ones I wrote for

my own use ever did.  I look forward to whatever you folks come up with.

  2.  I approve of the trade journal.  The only comment I have is related to

tech level.  There needs to be some alterations in how tech level works for

equipment availability and such.  See the rest of the post for general ideas.

  3.  Ship contruction is fatally flawed from a physics point of view.  I

realize that this is a role playing game, and so will not be perfect, but there

are some real bugs...

  First off, antimatter power plants should produce about a million times the

power that they do for a given amount of fuel.  I think fusion plants are off

by about five orders of magnitude.  I am not sure about the others.  I am

debating making the antimatter change, but I really do not want to start

mucking with the fusion rules.

  Second, nobody in thier right mind would want to put a disitegrator on a

small ship.

  Third, why on earth don't jump units get smaller or cheaper with tech level

rise?  Likewise for thrusters.  I somehow fail to believe that the technology

is perfect at TL 12.

  4.  Equipment rules are flawed in many of the same ways.  The econmic system

makes next to no sense.  Given that he wanted to create trade between various

tech levels, an unlikely proposition at best, he should have dealt with tech

level changes better.  I therefore propose the following ground rules for

technology.

- ------------------------

  The typical credit referred to is the official currency of the Imperium,

backed by the TAS and the banking megacorporations.  This allows it to be a

good stable currency.  To convert to local currency, use the tables in Striker

or TCS.  I can type these in if needed.  Local currency _ONLY_ matters if one

wants to figure out how the standard of living relates to the standard of

living among the interstellar culture.  All transactions are usually carried

out in Imperial credits.

  Equipment will get cheaper by approx. 10% per tech level.  Thus, making a

TL 5 car at TL 9 should cost you .9^4 or 63% or the TL 9 cost.  Note that this

makes TL 12 merchant ships dirt cheap by TL 15.  Why are the space lanes not

full of these critters?  Because the TL 15 starport is swamped with offers to

build TL 15 craft at full price.

  Now, as TL rises, the functionality will increase by about 10-20% per tech

level.  In some cases, such as space technology or computers, the rise is much,

much more.  For these, I use about an order of magnitude for each 1-3 tech

levels depending on the effects I want to get out of the equipment.

  Finally, these two effects will compete, requiring me to replace the single

prices with a tech level matrix that give functionality and price at any given

tech level.

  Ilustrative example: The pocket computer.  It becomes available at TL 11

      TL

      |

Type--+--    1     1/bis     2     2/bis     3

      |

      11    1000

      12     900    1000

      13     810     900    1000

      14     720     810     900    1000

      15     630     720     810     900    1000

  Where type is the type of computer that it will duplicate.

  By the way, for ship computers, I allow a volume drop of about a factor of 2

or 3 per tech level.  Thus, at TL 15, one may have a big, expensive, power

hungry model 9, or a small, inexpensive model three that the ships engineer can

carry on his belt.

  As I said above, TL 15 starports are FAR to busy making mailitary and large

craft to make many free traders, thus the average free trader is about TL 12 or

so.  One can still run a free trader off a 1/bis, but it is not as tempting.

  Any comments, especially on fixes to the starship system in MT?

                             Scott

                             xxxxxx@HMCVAX

                             xxxxxx@jarthur.claremont.edu