Quote from: jeff37923;710993Actually, spin habs have been a staple of science fiction since the 50's. The spin hab is downright venerable.

How do they not work from an engineering point of view?

This, they work fine, you just need to get the radius large enough.

Also tanks taking advantage of ground effect would be an awesome weapon; contrary to popular opinion, tanks are very limited as to where they can go. They just happen to mostly be deployed against populated areas where people and hence trucks can go these days.

Quote from: jeff37923;710993Actually, spin habs have been a staple of science fiction since the 50's. The spin hab is downright venerable.

Mostly in the form of space stations, not the spin habs on 2300 ships.

QuoteHow do they not work from an engineering point of view?

Caveat: I'm not saying that the reactive centrifugal force from centripetal acceleration can't be used to emulate gravity, it can.

However, the orthogonal nature of the force from the linear acceleration of the spin hab will have direct consequences on the vehicle: minimally, this is a gyroscopic effect, eg why helicopters have a tail rotor to compensate for the torque (a counter spinning hab could act as a harmonic damper somewhat). Worst case is that it will actually break the ship in two (like with mast bumping in helicopters), esp when one figures in the length of the moment arm so that one doesn't get different acceleration between the head and foot of an average height person. Then there are electrical connections, a contact ring is the only thing I can think would work, but those run into ohm's law like a brick wall, esp under prolonged duration. This is just off the top of my head and from memory of being a engineering student at Purdue at the time when we were looking at the game; it wasn't the first disappointing design sequence from GDW, Striker's paper Panther had it as well. It has been a long time though.

GDW had a lot of fun stuff, trav was great until it started in with the guys in unitards and blunderbusses, that was pretty bleh. Then I read Dave Nielsen talking about the "problem" with micro-vibrations and turret mounted weapons, something that our lowly tech had solved with things like shaft mounted dampers, or bitching about Vampire: The Masquerade players; that was not encouraging. He is actually a nice guy though, I think the ship was sinking by that point, Marc had left to become a insurance salesman; it must have been stressful on Dave.

I will use the 2300AD mongoose stuff for lower tech worlds in campaigns, I do like it well enough.

Quote from: dragoner;710871Like the OP, I was an avid CT player and we played T2K as well; 2300 was a non-starter, the tech was wanky - flying hover tanks? Nope, never. Plus the things like the spin habs, don't work from an engineering point of view; this infects all of GDW's work by the late 80's, early 90's: they are liberal arts people trying to interpret engineering and getting it wrong.

This is why I'm always reluctant to play supposed 'hard' scifi games... cause there's always gonna be that guy who wants to claim expertise and lecture on how the setting or the ref has gotten some bit of trivia wrong.
Last week our Shadowrun game nearly collapsed under the tantrum the resident tech support guy had about the dangerous feedback featured in the rules. He just couldn't swallow it, or allow anyone else to swallow it either.
I see the same guys on various forums pitching fits about grav tanks.

Quote from: Simlasa;711041This is why I'm always reluctant to play supposed 'hard' scifi games... cause there's always gonna be that guy who wants to claim expertise and lecture on how the setting or the ref has gotten some bit of trivia wrong.
Last week our Shadowrun game nearly collapsed under the tantrum the resident tech support guy had about the dangerous feedback featured in the rules. He just couldn't swallow it, or allow anyone else to swallow it either.
I see the same guys on various forums pitching fits about grav tanks.

I love grav tanks (I'm an armor guy), I just don't like it when someone wants to repackage them as flying "hover tanks" and sell me a line of garbage that they are realistic, because no, they aren't. ACV's suck, period, end of sentence; and that is straight from the mouth of guys who worked with them in Vietnam.

IIRC, the term "hard sci-fi" was coined by Asimov for the science being a central part of the story, as opposed to character driven, I guess. But in that, it doesn't sound as good for an RPG.

Trav is hardish sci-fi enough, and I do get sick of people that come in a gripe about certain details, whence what they are doing is more realistic when it isn't. Certain groups are more guilty of this than others.

That is weird about Shadowrun, because it has magic and the supernatural, no? You would think that they would be able to handwave away minor discrepancies.

Quote from: dragoner;711048That is weird about Shadowrun, because it has magic and the supernatural, no? You would think that they would be able to handwave away minor discrepancies.

Yeah, you'd think... but somehow the fact that it has 'technology' is just an invitation for some players to bloviate about their knowledge of 4G systems and whatnot.

Never did adopt 2300 AD for anything.

Seemed like a remake of Traveller. Most of us who had gotten a start with Traveller, had also went on to add bunches of homebrew stuff. We had Air/Rafts, GEVs, Hover Tanks, Heavy Weapons, Specialized Equipment, and not just one of each, but stats for vehicles and equipment from multiple different major alliances, and factions.

2300 Seemed a bit backwards in time, and very limited in scope in comparison. We used a lot more stuff for our Traveller games from the Star Frontiers books. Star Frontiers was actually so good, it was looking like it could replace Traveller for a time. What killed Star Frontiers though was the sorry Starship Design Rules, and the lack of ready-made NPC, and Faction Starships.

They eventually came out with a SF book for starships, but it was too late...

I played in a campaign of the then-spanking-new T:2300 with some college kids back in 1986 when I was a snot-nosed high school whelp (It was very gracious of them to let me join them, thinking back on it). At the time, it blew my mind: It was the most CUTTING EDGE and GRITTY and RADICAL sci-fi game EVER.

Good times, good times. The early years of "Cyberpunk" (Using the term in the broadest possible sense of "Near-Future gritty SF") as a nerd fad were a lot of fun as a kid.

Quote from: Simlasa;711056Yeah, you'd think... but somehow the fact that it has 'technology' is just an invitation for some players to bloviate about their knowledge of 4G systems and whatnot.

That being said, I was just expressing my disappointment at the time, I do not want to ruin anybody's fun with 2300AD.

Sorry to anybody if it came off that way.

Thanks for the feedback everyone!

Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;710777And yes, you missed a nice hard SF setting with fascinatingly alien aliens.

What made the aliens fascinating?

Would they still be interesting to players today?

Quote from: jeff37923;710792Yes, you certainly missed something if you skipped 2300AD.

Is it worth revisiting today?

Is the MongTrav version of 2300 more interesting than the original?

Quote from: Just Another Snake Cult;711060At the time, it blew my mind: It was the most CUTTING EDGE and GRITTY and RADICAL sci-fi game EVER.

How do you feel when you look at it today?

Quote from: Spinachcat;711076Is it worth revisiting today?

Is the MongTrav version of 2300 more interesting than the original?

I would have to say "yes", but then again my name is in the book.

Now I would not say that it is more interesting, but the setting is just as interesting - what is more interesting is the fan-based work that has happened with a "dead" game between GDW's demise and now. There is a horde of cool stuff out there to incorporate (or not, as suits your personal taste) into 2300.

There is no Starter 2300 as of yet, but I will venture to say that it is worth the money.

Quote from: dragoner;711071That being said, I was just expressing my disappointment at the time, I do not want to ruin anybody's fun with 2300AD.

Sorry to anybody if it came off that way.

No, no. I grok where you are coming from. There are a few minor things, though. The hover tanks just hover - they can overpressure the fan output to get over obsticles, but they cannot fly. The spin habs, to reduce vibration problems, torque, and having people stroke out when they turn their heads in a small radius are limited to a max of 4RPM - most only produce 0.2g or less.

Quote from: Spinachcat;711076What made the aliens fascinating?

From the left to right.

The Xiang - a stone age civilization with a focus on the arts. Formally enslaved by the Sung.
The Sung - a technological civilization only slightly behind humanity. Divided into nation state analouges, enslaved the Xiang. Although the version of Sung slavery is more nuanced than our history's slavery. Basically the leading philosophy of the Sung Homeworld believes it is the obligation of a "superior" civilization to uplift the inferior and then liberate them when they have done so.

The problem with Xiang is they have little interest in the type of technology the Sung values. In any case when the Canadians, who made first contact, figured out that Sung enslaved the Xiang they formed an alliance and fought a short war to liberate the Xiang.

Kafers - I will get back to them in a minute as they are the major antagonist.

Klaxun - a stone age civilization, their evolution has blurred the line between plants and animals.

Ebers - a formally advanced civilization that was star faring. They have a multi-lobed brain. They switch from lobe to lobe to do different types of tasks. They use elaborate rituals to do this. A the same Eber might have a different personality depending on what lobe is in use.

Humans -use

Pentapods - actually biological robots sent out by sessile "gods" to explore the universe. Their starfaring civilization is based on biological technology. A pentapod god can be seen in the back of the picture.

Finally back to the Kafers

Kafers are an advanced starfaring civilization that is currently at war with humanity, at the end of the French Arm. What makes Kafer unique is that normally they are pretty stupid about equivalent to human IQ of 60 to 80. However when faced with danger or stress their endocrine system triples their IQ. Moreso this effect feel like the equivalent of a drug high for a human. And when it wears off the Kafer base IQ rises a little. Given enough stressful experiences and time a Kafer can develop average human level intelligence and beyond.

The civilization developed when they figured out a ritual system of violence to keep the average intelligence high enough to sustain a technological civilization. As an example a leader hits their subordinate before they give an order to make them more intelligent to understand what needs to be done. They are divided in numerous nation-state like warbands.

Main conflict is the fact their system of violence is abhorrent to humans. And that we are viewed as "smart" barbarians a major figure of evil in Kafer history.

The main deal there is very little of the human in funny suit vibe among 2300AD aliens. For me the Ebers, Pentapods, and Kafer are pretty interesting in their own right.

Quote from: Spinachcat;711076Thanks for the feedback everyone!

How do you feel when you look at it today?

I never actually owned the game myself (Money was really tight in my teen and college years) but had a blast at the time and the game is one of the many on my "Pick up a used copy if you see one cheap somewhere" list.

Quote from: estar;711129

Finally back to the Kafers

The Kafers! One of things from T:2300 I fondly remember. The Kafers were extremely cool antagonists. Definitely not the standard Klingon-wanna-bes.

I know their name is a sore spot for some, but in the rough-and-tumble "New Colonial Age" of the game's background it made sense.

I bought the 2300AD box a year ago at a yard sale, but found it far to crunchy for my taste, so it's for sale now.

But the most important bit I took from that box is, that back when it was published, the people who wrote roleplaying games were so cool, that they put pictures of themselves on the back of their games. I mean, c'mon: