[TML] Scientific realism

[Jerry W Barrington]

On 6/1/08 6:50 PM, "Richard Aiken" <raikenclw at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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.

Seems to me, that in general, whether you light up active or not, a civilian
against a hostile is generally toast.  That doesn't seem to have anything to
do with the rule system.

> 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.

Interesting thought.