[TML] Scientific realism

[Richard Aiken]

On Sun, Jun 1, 2008 at 11:16 PM, Jerry W Barrington
<jerry.barrington at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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.

Correct.  If the hostile is a military-grade vessel.  But most pirates
(at least in Traveller) are barely-converted merchant ships.  Whether
or not this makes actual sense is another question.  In other
backgrounds - the Honorverse and the "Merchanter's Luck" books -
pirates are actually "rogue" warships of substantial tonnage.  But
that's another debate . . .

Against the typical Traveller pirate, the typical PC-crewed ship has a
decent chance at surviving and even winning the encounter.  But that's
because the sensors are more-or-less even.  In CT, they aren't an
issue at all (occuring in the background).  But in non-Traveller 2300,
the lack of a good sensor suite quickly kills you . . . if the pirate
managed to get his hands on a better one, that is.

-- 
Richard Aiken

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