From: John Kovalic <muskrat@m...>
Date: Thu, 6 Feb 1997 08:14:03 -0500
Subject: Full Thrust for Marc Miller's Traveller (T4)
Hi, all, if anyone is interested, I'm trying to do a good T4/FT hybrid, along with some members of the Traveller Mailing list. I know some talk was given to Traveller on the Full Thrust list a while ago, before T4 was released. I'll try and track those archives down, so we don't re-invent the wheel. But if anyone wants to help with this project, please send me some e-mail. I really don't know which direction to take this (yet). I think that any hybrid should, as accurately as possible without sacrificng playability, be a good approximation of Traveller starship combat. Even though Mayday was simple (though very, very unsatisfying), it could at least be used to resolve Traveller battles. I see no reason why a good Full Thrust hybrid couldn't do the same. Some obvious things that we need to look at: Scale: I do think that we should concentrate EITHER on ships 1,000 tons and under, OR on ships 800 tons and above, to fit Full Thrust's scales. I'll explain this in detail later, but my first attempt to fit Traveller to FT left me with the impression that either one or the other would work (or both would work as seperate systems), but that both *together* didn't really "fit." A vector movement system. Mayday and Battle Rider handled this simply, so we should be able to make something of a direct translation here. Arcs of fire. Traveller has few restrictions ala Full Thrust. The 12-point movement system. Since Mayday and Battle Rider were hex-based games, this should not pose a problem. Weapons designations. What's an "A" battery? etc. Ship stats. Starships (urgh) is the only definitive listing of ships for T4. But if we want to go the 800 Ton-plus route, we'll probably need to use Brilliant Lances stats. Tech levels. How would these be handled? Character skills. Would these even come into play? And lots, lots more. But I really think that we can produce a definitive T4/Full Thrust translation.