Quote from: Bren;856532The computer sizes in Traveller were silly within a few years of publication at best.

This is the "computer" for a modern destroyer; it's 35 feet long, 8 feet high, and 12 feet wide.

And this "computer" doesn't have to be hardened against cosmic radiation, and doesn't have to calculate hyperspace jumps.

That's about 6.8 tons in Traveller terms all by itself.

Quote from: DavetheLost;856162Maybe they have upgraded them in more recent edition, but in CT, even in the early 80s computers seemed overly large for a sic-fi game. Even accounting for workstations etc.

Horses for courses though. If they don't seem overly large to you, that's fine. Many Traveller players disagree.

Dont the Traveller computers though handle alot more computing power than even modern standards? Especially shipboard ones. Does the computer size take into account shielding from electromagnetics, weapons, and natural phenomena?

When have you seen anything go from one  point to another at hundreds of times the speed of light?

Accelerate at 1 gee or more for days on end?

Never mind  the WAY too big  payload ratio, that comes from magically hand-waving conservation of momentum out of existence.

Lasers focusing on distant targets without huge lenses? Oh, that's just the artificial gravity and anti-gravity magically hand-waved into existence.

These are vastly more fantastic than unicorns and dragons. Conan's Hyborian Age adventures are 'realistic' by comparison.

I think that everyone has forgotten one very important thing.

Quote from: Phillip;856812By common sense, what YOU were going on about: slug throwers.

You seem to be confused about the point I made,  which was that I dislike the term. First you decided to explain what a slug thrower is - maybe you thought someone in this thread didn't know the meaning, why you would think that I have no idea. Next you decided that it was important to you to point out that slug thrower wasn't a term invented solely for science fiction. Again, not something I've seen anyone in the thread be confused about and again utterly irrelevant to the reasons I dislike the term, which really come down to aesthetic reasons.

The designer could have called it a "rod" or a "gat" and I'd dislike the usage. Unless instead of a sci-fi game we were playing a game with gumshoes, gangsters. or hoodlums that was set in the mid twentieth century USA. My dislike in that case again would have nothing to do with the definition nor with the fact that the words are part of the English language.

If your point was "slug thrower" is a word. Well OK. Why yes, yes it is a word.

Ah, so there should be no pistols or rifles (or swords or spears) in the game because those are real things. Well, so are planets, even when they're called 'worlds', and stars, and grazer herbivores and navies and marine corps and merchants and oligarchies and computers and corporations ...

Does "vacc suit" pass muster because of the extra 'c', or must it be a cziltang brone oscillating framizam?

I dislike the term lightsaber.

Quote from: Phillip;856847Ah, so there should be no pistols or rifles (or swords or spears) in the game because those are real things. Well, so are planets, even when they're called 'worlds', and stars, and grazer herbivores and navies and marine corps and merchants and oligarchies and computers and corporations ...

Does "vacc suit" pass muster because of the extra 'c', or must it be a cziltang brone oscillating framizam?

You're mis-representing his position. He just finds the phrase clumsy and artificial. I find that hard to argue with, myself.

On the few occasions it comes up, go ahead and substitute 'firearms' or whatever rocks your boat. But calling it one of the "dumbest names ever for a sci-fi weapon" is a bit over the top when it's not even a sci-fi weapon in the first place!

I always kinda like the term 'slug thrower'... for whatever reason. It's not objectively good or bad... but I will leave the table if some gun nut freaks out because someone mixes up clip and cartridge and magazine.

Quote from: Phillip;856847Ah, so there should be no pistols or rifles (or swords or spears) in the game because those are real things.

Yes, that is exactly what I meant. I just used words that said something completely different to confuse people. Good thing you, with your amazing internet telepathy, were able to discern what I really meant, but didn't say. :rolleyes:

Quote from: Brad J. Murray;856849You're mis-representing his position. He just finds the phrase clumsy and artificial. I find that hard to argue with, myself.

Give Brad an A for reading ability.

Quote from: Simlasa;856855I always kinda like the term 'slug thrower'... for whatever reason. It's not objectively good or bad... but I will leave the table if some gun nut freaks out because someone mixes up clip and cartridge and magazine.

Its a matter of aesthetics. You get to like it if you want.

RE: clip et al, I agree there is a small subset of gamers who become incredibly tedious about insisting on accuracy in terminology at the table way past the point of anyone else giving a shit.

"Did you not understand that my PC was reloading when I said, "Sgt. Rock slaps another clip/magazine in his tommygun or are you just grinding the game to a halt by being an anal retentive prat?"

Diatribes about how chainmail isn't are equally tedious at the table.

"Slug throwers are useless against the stark energies of a light machine-gun avatar! It's snail throwers or space axes!"

Seriously, threads like these are why more people don't play Traveller.

Traveller has almost always taken a gamist approach to science fiction much as D&D does to fantasy.  It's a big kitchen sink game that focuses more on playability than realism.

It puts faster than light travel, antigravity, and reactionless engines as an accessible and relatively inexpensive technology because it makes mass space travel interesting.  There's no ftl radio because it makes murder hobo adventurers possible.  Jump, not maneuver uses fuel because it puts a physical limitation on travel without having people jumping up and down about the increasing acceleration as reaction mass is expended formulas that would be required for the alternative.

It's not Star Wars or Dune but both those stories can play out in the Imperium.  You could even do a Foundation style game after the collapse set around a surviving Imperial depot or a Star Trek style game of exploration on the Rimward end of Solomani territory.

I've written a few sfrpgs myself over the years but never gone really far in promoting or publishing them because the market is what it is and I don't see the need or desire in the market place.  I'm actually playing around with one that will try to do most of what T5 does in under 12 pages.  I find people's eyes glaze over if I push rules at them that are much longer than that anyhow.

If you think Traveller is unrealistic you should take a look at Star Wars or Warhammer 40000 both of which are far more popular and far less internally consistent or realistic.