Let's Read: Traveller, 1977 Edition, Starships, page 13

And we're back to the Engineering Section. There's a note that not all power plants and drives will fit into various hull sizes. There's also a very good point to consider: Don't take up too much room with your drive and power plant, or you won't be able to fit other important pieces like life support or fuel. Remember, hull sizes are a maximum tonnage, and the drives and plants take up quite a bit of room.

Oh, and the power plant has to be at least as big as the maneuvering drive. That certainly makes sense; you wouldn't expect to run a semi-truck on a 9-volt battery, after all.

Next up, the main compartment. It's not really worth bolding that, I don't think. Now, when we're talking about The Bridge, that's a different story. The main compartment holds everything that isn't in the Engineering Section. So, that's your fuel, computer, bridge, cargo, weapons, etc.

The Bridge takes up 20 tons of space just for the basic package. And it costs half a million credits for every 100 tons of starship. The bridge doesn't include the ship's computer, though, which gets its own space next to the bridge. There are seven models of computer (cleverly named Model/1 to Model/7), with two variations. There's a nice table that lists them all, including the price in millions of credits (as high as 60 million for the Model/7), their mass in tons, the CP--

Wait. Tons? As in, tons of mass? The Model/7 weighs 5 freaking tons? That's insane! That's 10,000 pounds! My son's truck can barely pull that weight.

Ahem. Sorry.

The CPU is rated for how many programs it can process. Simultaneously? It doesn't say. The Model/1 can handle 2 programs (and store 4). The Model/7 can take on 20 programs, with 50 in storage. I'm assuming that these programs can be run simultaneously; they might not have had Windows in 1977, but multitasking was certainly on the horizon.

The computer software list (page 12) is given a mention. It also tells us that the list gives the contents of the basic software package...which it doesn't. We just get a 2-million credit package that we can customize, I suppose.

A lot of ships also hold tonnage in reserve for later; that's a subtle hint that adventurers might not want to fully trick-out their ships right away, because you never know what might come up while traveling the space lanes.

Oh, fire control. That's always fun. It's also adjacent to the bridge, and a turret costs one ton of space just for the control equipment. Turrets are mentioned as something that is held in reserve instead of automatically being installed. Ooh, what if the PCs find a strange new weapon of some sort? That would be fun to install on their ship. Who knows what it might do? Who knows what side effects it might have? The possibilities are as endless as space itself.

And, that wraps up another page. Tune in net time when we explore the wonders of Page 14. I'll see you when I get there.

Our move is almost complete; the lawyers have the paperwork now, and as of Friday we're off. If there's internet available when we camp along the way, I'll add some more pages to this Let's Read.

Final Stretch

Sunday is supposed to be a day of rest...except when you're moving across the country. Then, it's a day of sheer exhaustion. We filled another ten feet of the moving bin today. We've got about five feet to go, and we still have to put patio furniture, dining room chairs, a desk, a lounging chair...and we've got until Tuesday morning to get it done. It's the most challenging game of 3D Tetris I've ever played.

Still, it was a good day for getting stuff done. The paperwork for the other end is completed, and the trip is planned out. All we need to do is finish stuffing the bin, locking it up tight, and pack up the trailer and vehicles for the road. Oh, and my son and I are, of course, still working our jobs right up until the end. Because why shouldn't we drive ourselves completely mental in this process?

Friday is the big day, the day we're officially homeless until we get to Prince Edward Island. I'm looking forward to it, not least because we're arriving on my fiftieth birthday. Now that is how you celebrate a milestone birthday, with a new house.

I hope I'll be able to resume regular blogging and a proper writing schedule after that. I've still got lots of ideas percolating, not to mention another Cameron Vail mystery to finish writing. Yes, I was working on one when this whole moving thing got started, and I've been a wee bit sidetracked. But it's going to happen once we're arrived and at least partially unpacked. I, for one, can't wait.

I made my wife a promise, too; once we get there, I'm done with the whole political scene. We'll still vote in the local elections, but I'm not going to waste any more of my time discussing political issues online and getting into debates with people I don't know. Life is too important to waste with that now. No, once we get there, the focus is going to be the 3 Fs: Faith, family, and farm. And writing, but that doesn't start with an 'F'.

I'll be posting more Traveller stuff soon, maybe even tomorrow if we get the bin finished in time. In the meantime, you can always read some science fiction, like Bard Conley's Adventures Across the Solar System, available now at an Amazon website near you.

Let's Read: Traveller, 1977 Edition, Starships, page 12

Oh, a break in the text. Instead, we get a table of computer programs usable on starships. And there are quite a few. Offensive, defensive, and routine programs abound. Let's take a look at what we've got. There's not much description; a note at the bottom of the table says details will come later in the text. Alrighty, then.

First up, offensive programs. Because blowing things up is the most important thing in space travel. The program types are 'Predict,' 'Gunner Interact', 'Target', Selective', 'Multi-Target', and 'Launch'. There are five different 'Predict' programs, three Selective and three Multi-Target. The table gives space taken up by each program, as well as the price...which is in millions of credits. Damn, I thought Apple computers were too pricey.

The 'space' part is curious; these are software, not hardware. Maybe it refers to the computer's memory capacity. Computers in 1977 didn't have a lot of memory, and hard drives didn't exist. They didn't even use floppy disks yet; I remember our first computer, built (by my dad) around the time this game came out. It used a cassette tape drive for storage. Man, that thing took forever to load. And the computer's memory was a whopping 4 KB. That's RAM, not permanent storage. And it took a few minutes to load up a BASIC program. I don't think anyone in 1977 was envisioning the sorts of computers we have today. Not in the gaming industry, anyway.

Alright, let's see what details we can glean from the table. The Predict programs, 1 through 5, are given only a DM of +1 to +3, depending on how expensive the program is. I'm not sure what the DM is for; I'll find out later. 'Gunner Interact' lets you add the gunner's expertise (skill level?) to the turret's attack. Well, that's a pretty important program, since you want to man your guns with men who know how to use them. And the program only costs a mere 1,000,000 credits.

'Selective' gives us some details: It allows the gunner to choose what part of the target ship he hits. The options are the main compartment and the engineering section. Sorry, Engineering Section. The Selective 2 program actually takes up more memory than the Selective 3. It costs a bit less, but it has a -1 DM. I'm still not sure what the DM actually affects, but we'll find out soon enough.

'Multi-Target' lets the ship (but not a specific turret) to target multiple ships. I'm going to guess that the level of the program (2 to 4) determines how many ships can be targeted simultaneously. 'Launch' is pretty straightforward; you can launch missiles...and sand. Sand? Who the hell is launching sand out of a missile turret? Is it supposed to be some sort of chaff? Laser screen? Wouldn't there be better options than sand? Maybe it's a typo. Please, let it be a typo.

Next up, we have the defensive programs. Because after blowing other ships up, the most important thing is not getting your own ship blown up. There are 'Maneuver/Evade' with six levels, Auto/Evade, Return Fire, Anti-Missile, and ECM. Maneuver/Evade lets the computer do the routine maneuvering, and (I'm guessing) allows the ship to take evasive maneuvers like a pilot would. The higher the level, the better the ship's performance. Except I'm not sure why Maneuver/Evade 6 gets a -5 DM. I sincerely hope that's explained later.

Auto/Evade has a -2 DM, and nothing else to explain it. The next three are pretty straight forward: Return Fire means the ship will shoot back automatically. Anti-Missile uses lasers to knock them down. Okay, so why the sand? ECM can blow the missile up before it reaches your ship. Again, why the friggin' sand? That's bugging me. And I know I've still got to get through a few more pages before I get to the computer program descriptions, because that's just how this is going to work.

Routine programs are just that: Routine. Unlike the offensive and defensive programs, though, some of these are required for a ship. 'Maneuver' means your pilot can actually fly the ship. The Jump programs (1-6) are required to use the jump drive. And there's a library program, which contains 'encyclopedic information.' So, a futuristic version of Wikipedia, then. And it only costs 300,000 credits. Then there's Navigation, which isn't mentioned as 'required,' but I would imagine it pretty much is, anyway. It receives flight plans to control jumps. No mention of interplanetary steering, though. Generate means the ship can make its own flight plans. That's handy. Finally, there's an 'Anti-Hijack' program, which, as the title suggests, reacts to hijacking situations. Which, I recall, aren't that uncommon. No wonder they get their own dedicated software. There's no 'anti-reactor explosion' program, or 'anti-out-of-fuel' program. No, hijackers are special.

There's also a note at the bottom of the table that new ships have a built-in 2,000,000 credit voucher to put software into the ship. So, that's enough for the maneuvering and jump drives, which will leave anywhere from 1.2 to 1.8 million credits for other programs. After that, though, you're adding stupid amounts of money to the cost of your ship if you want to really trick it out with the newest upgrades and patch files.

For a page with little text, this one produced quite a bit of text, didn't it? Let's get back to the Engineering Section next time. Maybe. We'll see.

Counting Down

Two weeks to go; then, we'll be in the new farmhouse. What a birthday present! It's been exhausting, and I haven't felt very motivated to write anything, much less a blog entry. But persistence is key. The bottleneck right now is just packing up all our stuff and getting it ready to go. We still have to live here, after all. But the clock is ticking, so it's got to be done.

Much like when we had our crawlspace flood a few months ago, this has become an opportunity to go through our stuff and decide what we really want to hang on to. There's a whole bunch of stuff that we just don't need. And, we're limited in how much stuff we can actually bring, since the shipping container we're using will only hold so much. Sure, we'll bring some of it with us in the vehicles, but that's not going to be enough to bring it all with us.

So, it's time to clear out some of the dead weight, some things that have just been sitting around for years, collecting dust or otherwise just taking up space. Did we really need to have three garbage bags full of Tupperware and food containers? I don't think so. And our closets are getting a thorough going-over, as well; my wife has a critical eye, and a lot of that stuff is going to find a home in the nearest thrift store. Well, we weren't wearing it, anyway.

Some of the stuff we've found is stuff we do want to keep, stuff we hadn't seen for a long time and assumed was lost. Old pictures, things we got as wedding gifts, that sort of thing. Frankly, though, most of it isn't going to make the cut. We're trying to simplify and downsize a lot of this stuff, so we don't have all the clutter in the new place.

We've got the trip itself all planned out, with campsites paid for and travel documents ready. It sucks that we actually have to show papers at a provincial border now. Is this Eastern Europe in the mid-1960s or something? Stupid COVID rules. We're going to a province that has fewer cases than the WNBA has viewers, but we're still going to be under a 14-day quarantine. And the provincial government will be checking up on us twice a day to make sure we haven't strayed from the property.

Well, it's a done deal now, anyway, so we're just going to have to put up with it. We'll be homeless on the 25th, so we're committed.

There's not much else to say tonight; I'll have another Traveller page done tomorrow, though, and I'll try to keep them going more regularly, since that's what's got the most traffic so far.

Let's Read: Traveller, 1977 Edition, Starships, page 11

Back for more! And now, we get to learn about drives and power plants for starships. This continues from the previous page, but there was no easy breakpoint in the text, so I just used the chart. So, we'll begin back on page 10 with a reminder that drives are assigned a letter of the alphabet based on their power and speed; the higher the letter, the bigger and better the engine. The chart on the next page gives us more detail on the specs of these drives and plants.

I forgot to mention that these letter designations apply to three different ship systems: Power Plants, Maneuver Drives, and Jump Drives. And starships get all three. Interplanetary ones wouldn't bother with the jump drive, obviously. I don't see anything that states that they all have to be the same size or letter, though. From what I can tell so far, a ship could have three different letter-designations for these separate systems, as long as they all fall into the range allowable for that particular hull size.

So, a size 600 hull, for example, might have a power plant H (2), a maneuver drive Q (5), and a jump drive M (4). Maneuvering drives are measured in maximum Gs, and jump drives are, I assume, measured in how far they can actually jump. According to the rules on passengers and cargo earlier, a Jump-3 drive is three times as good as a Jump-1 drive.

Next up, we are introduced to the Engineering Section. It's an important section, because it's both capitalized and in bold. And dear God, those are some expensive pieces of hardware. The costs in the table on page 11 are in millions of credits. On the tiniest ship allowable, with Type A plant and drives, it's 22 million credits for these three things alone. And the hull itself cost a minimum of 20 million. No wonder it's a 40-year mortgage. Captains will be taking on insanely dangerous jobs just to afford the interest payments.

Finally on this page, we learn that the sum of the mass displacements of each of the three components can't exceed the mass displacement of the engineering section itself, and all three have to be installed in the engineering section. Sorry, the Engineering Section. So far, though I don't know what the mass displacement of the engineering section is, so I can't give an example. Maybe I'll peek ahead?

No...that would be cheating. Tune in next time to find out what happens!

For those readers who are only hanging around for these Traveller posts, take a minute to post a comment and say 'hi.' What's your experience with these rules? Are you a newer-edition player? Do you prefer the later, 1981 version of the rules? Have you designed any cool spaceships with these rules? Is the cost going to continue to make me weep?

That last question is rhetorical, just so you know. I already know the answer.

Back to School

 Yes, I'm moving, I'm working, I'm trying to continue with my writing...and now I'm back in school, working toward that History degree. Unfortunately, the course options are rather threadbare for online students. In the age of COVID, there are a few more options, since the university is offering some of its in-class-only courses online this term. But still, after three terms I've gone through the courses that are actually interesting, and now I'm left with the dregs.

I find myself in a bit of a quandary, really. With so few options available, and faced with a certain number of credit requirements to get a degree, I'm stuck with some courses that really don't appeal to me. Sure, the Gilded Age history course looks like a lot of fun, especially since I wrote a book set in that time period, and the Astronomy class is moving out of the Solar System and out to the stars this term, which will be great fun. But the course on Latin American history is basically fulfilling a requirement. Yay.

But the biggest challenge is going to be the course on Gender History in North America to 1880. Yes, that is an actual thing. And because the course options are so slim, I'm forced to take this course if I want to graduate with my chosen degree. It was either that, or the History of India course. And my interest in Indian history ranks somewhere around my interest in Navel-Lint Chemical Analysis. At least the course I'm taking has the potential to provide enormous entertainment. I doubt I'll last more than two weeks, though; my opinions on the subject are likely to prove somewhat 'unenlightened.' Let's face it: I'm a white, straight, married, Catholic man who's about to turn 50. I expect that my presence in that course is going to trigger at least half of the students in the class, and all of the teaching staff. As I said, entertaining.

What frustrates me about this is that there really aren't that many courses available that cover Western civilization's history, at least not in a way that doesn't make our history look like a vast wave of oppression and evil white patriarchy. Seriously, we aren't that bad. Western civilization is awesome, and so is our history. But instead of learning about it, we get to learn about the history of pandemics (gee, nothing subtle about that one), gender history, or the history of other cultures. Why can't we learn our own? Is it because we'll find out that it isn't really as bad as we're being told?

I've studied history for over forty years; I'm just now going for an official designation on the matter. But I've read countless books on our history, and it's a fascinating subject. Even if you dig into it past the commonly-held myths and legends that comprise the majority of what we know about our history, you'll find incredible tales that really happened, and secrets that have shaped our society for centuries.

I hope that I'm wrong and that this semester will be full of learning, eager and open minds, but I'm not holding out a huge amount of hope in that regard. In the meantime, though, I'm going to keep packing, keep reading, and keep up this blog as best I can. I've already linked to a couple of my books in this post, so I'll add a third one just cause. It's my first book, Final Exam, still available on Amazon for the low introductory price of $0.99. And it's a topical book, since it takes place on a college campus. Which one? Does it really matter? Check it out, and spread the word; Indie publishing is the wave of the future.

Let's Read: Traveller, 1977 Edition, Starships, page 10

 Ah, now we get to the good stuff: How to Build a Spaceship. First up, what do we need? Well, the most obvious component for a ship is its hull; without a hull, there's no ship. And we are given six basic hulls to work with, ranging from 100 to 1000 tons. Okay, that's reasonable. And the hulls are divided into main and engine compartments. Oh, and the price is listed in millions of credits, ranging from 2,000,000 for the smallest, 100-ton ship, to 100,000,000 for the big boy at 1,000 tons. No wonder there's a forty-year mortgage on these suckers. The chart also gives us the time in months to actually build the ship. Now, these times, and as we saw on the last page, are reduced by one if the standard hull is used, rather than a custom job. The time to construct them ranges from 10 months (9 for a standard configuration) to 30 months (29 for standard). So, it takes quite a while to build these suckers.

Almost all of that information came from the chart on this page; we also find out that the ship needs drives, power plants, life support, hardpoints for armaments, computers, and other fun stuff. And, the total tonnage of these items can't exceed the ship's Hull size.

Next up, we find out that different hulls have different drive and power plant requirements. Drive efficiency is reduced as the ship gets bigger, so you'll need more powerful engines to run the ship. And there are...twenty-four different drive and power plant types. Now there's a nice, juicy chart. Old school gamers love charts. There are probably fifty memes about Gary Gygax and his love of charts.

Hmm, that's interesting the hull sizes on this chart go up to 5,000 tons, not the 1,000 we saw earlier. I guess that would be for custom sizes, which we don't have data for yet. But I'm sure we're about to find out. The twenty-four drive/plant types are alphabetized; only I and O are missing, to avoid numerical confusion, I guess. The smallest, 100-ton ship can't take an engine bigger than size C, whereas the biggest, 5,000-ton jobs can't take an engine smaller than 'Y', and even that gives them a measly 1 for their drive potential.

It's coming along, anyway. So far, our ship has a hull and an engine. Technically. We haven't actually paid for the engine yet. Or the hull, for that matter. Even a tiny, 100-ton ship is going to be ludicrously expensive. But as long as it's cool, money is no object.

So, that gets us to the end of another page.  More forthcoming. I'm going to try the function that lets me post-date my posts and see how that works for next time. Until then, keep on riding the stars, and buy indie publishing books to keep the dreams of real sci-fi and fantasy alive.

Racing to the Finish Line

 Well, we've got less than four weeks before our move is completed. And we've got about six weeks of work left to do around this house. No pressure, right?

It's funny how in life, nothing seems to go smoothly. We thought we had the last wrinkles of the move worked out. The legal and financial details, I mean; the sorting, packing and stacking part is ongoing. But we had a handle on it. Or so we thought.

The hot water tank just died. And it's going to cost us twenty-five hundred dollars to replace it. And we get no hot showers for almost a week, as a bonus. Yay! Something always seems to come up, doesn't it? It's like there's a force trying to stop us from successfully moving. But it's not going to work; this is a happening thing.

Unfortunately, it looks like we'll be waiting two weeks to get our internet up and running, since we'll have to quarantine for 14 days when we get there. That seriously sucks, especially when doing a blog. So, it looks like there's going to be a break in my posting until Canadian Thanksgiving, which is October 12th. I'd like to get it set up before we get there, but we might not be able to. It's going to be slower and with limited bandwidth, but that's not a bad thing; the plan is to slow down, not keep going at the same pace.

It's a lot of work, and my wife is exhausted now. But we're persevering; the reward is worth it in the end. A peaceful hobby farm, far away from the bustle of city life? I can live with that. And that's something I wouldn't have even imagined saying only six months ago. In the age of COVID, anything is possible.

I'm still going to write, of course; I just won't get to publish anything for a while. So, it looks like my plan to get 20 books published this year is dead. Still, I've got ten so far, and I will have a few more up before the end of the year, so I'm not complaining. I'll just reset my goals for 2021 and see what happens then.

In the meantime, please check out my books on Amazon; there's lots there to choose from, so check it out and see what catches your interest.

Let's Read: Traveller, 1977 Edition, Starships, page 9

Alright! Now we get to learn how to actually build those starships! Hey, maybe we can build our own instead of taking a forty-year mortgage on one. That would be cool.

Yeah, that's not going to happen. We are introduced to starship construction with an explanation that shipyards working with major starports do the building of these magnificent vessels. Commercial vessels, yachts, exploratory vessels, and military ships are available, and you can customize them depending on what you need, what you want, and what you can afford.

Starships are also basically modular in nature, with off-the-shelf sections assembled. Like Space Lego, I guess. And almost as expensive. Have you tried to find that stuff on eBay? I loved it when I was a kid, but man, it's ridiculously priced now. Anyway, starships can be customized, but there are a few standard templates to start from.

Or, if you want a designer spaceship, go to a naval architect. He can come up with the plans for your one-of-a-kind ship in four weeks. And it will only cost you 1% of the final cost of the ship. Well, that's not so bad...is it?

Ah, there's an actual checklist for starship design. That will come in handy. I recall Star Frontiers had a similar list for its ship design. Of course, custom starships were never as efficient as the ones that the rules already outlined. We'll see if that holds true in this older game. Anyway, after the naval architect comes up with the new plans, the shipyard can take over the actual building part.

Shipyards are available at A and B class starports, but only A-class ports can build starships; the B-ports are only for interplanetary, not interstellar, spacecraft. So, there probably aren't going to be a lot of places where you can even get a starship built. Or maybe there are; how common are Class-A starports? I'm sure I'll find out in Book 3.

Ship construction takes time, usually between ten and 36 months, depending on its hull size. I remember hull size being mentioned in the fuel section. Oh, and standard designs take a month less; I guess the construction crews are used to building them, so they get it done faster. We'll get more information on hull sizes later.

And it costs 20% for a down payment to get the shipyard started, and you'd better have the rest of the payment figured out, be it cash or financing before they'll bother laying the first piece of hull. And while we don't have the actual cost rules yet, we find out that standard ships are, again, easier (and cheaper) to build. The price for the standard ships is already listed in the standard ship rules section, coming up soon.

And that's another page done. What have we learned? Just a small taste of what we can expect from ship design; it's easier, faster, and cheaper to buy one off-the-rack than have it custom built. And I have a funny feeling that it's going to be stupidly expensive. Then again, the Space Shuttle was pretty costly, and that just got up to orbit. I'm looking forward to seeing what else ship design entails.