[TML] Scientific realism

[Richard Aiken]

On Sat, May 31, 2008 at 10:13 PM, Jerry W Barrington
<jerry.barrington at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/31/08 7:42 PM, "Leon Wu" <Leon.Wu at newswire.ca> wrote:
>
>> What about the ship combat system in 2300? That always seemed pretty hard sci
>> to me.
>
> Although I own much of 2300, I've never actually played it, and only skimmed
> the ship combat stuff.  Honestly, I was far more interested in the star
> system generation rules.  :D

IIRC, it pretty much sucked to be a PC-type merchant ship in that
game.  Everything initially showed up on the combat map as a "black
globe."  This wasn't the Traveller shield device.  It was an indicator
that a probable target was in *that* general vicinity and had *this*
general heading, but had not yet been acquired sufficiently to allow
engagment.  If you were a civilian and waited for your passive sensors
to so acquire the target - and it was a hostile with better passive
sensors than you - you were likely toast.  If you lit up your active
sensors to acquire it - and it was hostile . . . you were toast.

It seemed to me that (in 2300) Ethically Challenged Merchants would be
constantly scheming to enlist the best sensors tech available and then
buy/borrow/steal him the best passive sensor suite possible.  This
would have put a rather different twist - I think - on the usual party
dynamics.

-- 
Richard Aiken

"Never insult anyone by accident." Robert A. Heinlein