[TML] Tonnes, Tons and Tuns (long pedantic and possibly boring)

[Jerry W Barrington]

On 8/24/07 2:34 PM, Jeff Zeitlin wrote:

> Actually, I think it is.  Look for "cylinder".  Cylinders can be narrow
> and tall, or short and squatty.  A tuna can is short and squatty.

The *possibility* is there, yes.  But in practice, all the cylinder type
ships shown are long/skinny, and various references in the rules indicate
that skinny is what is meant.  For instance, cylinders are marked partially
streamlined.  Tuna cans wouldn't qualify.   In TNE FF&S, cylinders have a
length multiplier of 2, indicating twice as long as a sphere of the same
volume.  This would lead to a proper surface area multipler of 1.32, where
FF&S uses 1.1.  If you assumed that that "length" was actually the diameter
of the tuna can configuration, it would lead to a surface area multipler of
2.33.  Clearly they meant the rod shape.  I'm sure I could find more
evidence, but I really stand by the evidence that there are no tuna cans
illustrated in any Traveller book I've ever seen (and that's a lot of them).