Re: Background questions

The end of the bottomeless pit is a body-length and a half down. wrote:

> Actually, piping in here for a second, a parsec is more of an accepted
standard
> in measuring distances in the astronomical community. Now granted, it
doesn't
> translate into lightyears very easily (3.2615 ly to the parsec), but
then
> again, astronomical units (AUs), another standard of measure, don't
translate
> into miles/kilometers real easily, either. :-/

It's more common in the RPGs I've played (Traveller junkie!  TNE will
never die!) so that's what I was using.  

> bolster civilian liners to 3-4 parsecs per jump. Military ships going
1.5x to
> 2x the distance of Civie Ships. Otherwise you'll run the risk of
restricting
> your paths of travel to *exceedingly* narrow corridors, and some stars
then
> may easily be out of reach entirely (not all stars have planets - gas
giants

*eyebrows*  Wow.  Nice.  3&6.  What was the "official" speed of the
GZG-verse hop drive?  I remember it was something odd, and I thought it
was in the Fleetbook, but I can't find it.

> or otherwise - around 'em; of course I *am* speaking speculatively
here, just
> as speculatively as one would to claim planets around many/all stars
:)  give
> 'us' 10-15 years and we may have a better feel for how many planets
could be
> in existence around other stars...).

Of course most systems have gas giants!  Otherwise refueling gets really
inconvenient.  Playability wins if there are no hard facts.  :) This
goes up on the 'implicit assumptions' page.  

BTW, I was coming down with severe insomnia about 0230 this morning, and
threw together an entire backgroup page with notes on conversion of
GURPs[1] to the GZG-verse, with a focus on the NRE.  It's not up yet
(havn't decided on some of the details) but should be soon.  

John M. Atkinson

[1]I bought a couple of books after deciding that maybe GURP Traveller
might not be a total abomination.  Now I'm grudgingly impressed.  And I
don't see the point of translating GZG-verse into TNE when TNE isn't
supported and besides, the ship combat concepts are totally different.