My thanks to Roger Sanger, the copyright holder, for granting me permission to host this article on my web site.  To quote him, "I was looking for a new home for DGP's 2300 AD articles, and naturally I picked the best fan sites on the Web for that purpose.  Kudos to Pentapod's World!  Enjoy!" - Kevin Clark - January 24th, 2000.

Introduction

The Travellers' Digest magazine ran a Questions & Answers ( Q&A) column which occasionally had 2300AD questions; They are excerpted here.

From the Q&A column in issue #14:

All answers for 2300AD questions are reviewed by GDW's 2300AD line-manager, Lester Smith.

2300AD QUESTIONS

Do I need to get the new 2300AD rules if I already have the original set ( Traveller:2300)?  What is different in the new rules? -- M.S.

A good place to look for an in-depth answer to your question is the article in issue #34 of GDW's Challenge magazine, entitled "The 2300AD Revision".  There the game's line-manager, Lester Smith, talks about why the game was revised and how it was changed from the first edition.

The revision ( 2300AD) has 100 more pages than the first edition set.  Most of this new material is background, new illustrations, examples and a solitaire adventure.

Though it is useful to have the extra information in the new set, it is not essential for the play of any of the old or new adventures and modules.  Little has changed in the rules themselves. -- Rob Caswell

( One of my favorite parts of the new set is the wealth of material on the various 2300AD alien races, including a very enlightening illustration by Rob showing the various aliens standing together with a human.  Just the extra material on the aliens alone makes the revised 2300AD set worth buying in my book, but I am a gaming addict. -- Joe D. Fugate Sr.)

{ If you only have the chance to purchase one version, get the second edition of the game ( the 2300AD boxed set) -- KevinC }

In the first edition ( Traveller:2300) Referee's Manual, the ISV-5 has a listed stutterwarp range of 8.9 light years.  Both the Tallyrand-class battleship and the Kennedy-class cruiser introduced in Star Cruiser have ranges of 8.7 light years.  However, in the first edition Players' Manual, it says, on page 44, "Speed Limit: Maximum 7.7 light years travel between stars;...".  Is this rule wrong, or are those ships' ranges misprinted? -- M.G.

The listed ranges on those ships are, indeed, incorrect.  The range of 7.7 light years is the physical limit for any 2300AD starship, unless extended artificially by some dismantled dual-drive arrangement such as a stutterwarp tug.  Traveling a distance greater than 7.7 light years without discharging all operable drives is beyond modern science in the game's time, and currently thought to be impossible.

The revised rules ( 2300AD) clearly state that 7.7 light years is the stutterwarp range limit, period.  You will also find the new set gives the correct range for the ISV-5 and the Kennedy-class cruiser.  Extending a ship's range using stutterwarp tugs ( first introduced in issue #11 of Travellers' Digest magazine in "Exploration: American Style") is thoroughly discussed in the new edition. -- Rob Caswell

{ Rob overlooked one other way to extend the distance traveled beyond 7.7 LY, delaying stutterwarp discharge by 24 hours is detailed on pages 63 and 66 of the 2300AD Director's Guide -- KevinC }
 

From the Q&A column in issue #15:

All answers in this column are reviewed by GDW and thus are official answers to your questions.

2300AD QUESTIONS

In the back of the Director's Guide ( about page 102) there is a list of travel times in the section labeled "Interplanetary Travel Time".  This section states: "multiply interstellar speed ( in LY per day) by 0.645 for the in-system speed in AU per day." If you use the speed and time scales given in the starship combat section, the same ship may travel far greater distances in one day.  Why is this so?  - G.S.

One thing to be cautious of is taking tactical combat rules and assuming that the time scale, weapon range, and movement scale are all the same.  Many combat rules use a distance scale oriented toward weapon range, with a time scale intended to compress a conclusive amount of gametime battle damage into a reasonable session time.  The chosen movement scale may simply be one that "keeps the pieces on the map", and in effect is yet a third scale.  This makes the game playable and doesn't really hurt the feel of the game, even though the movement scale does not match the time scale or the weapon range.  Miniatures rules are particularly prone to the "three diffent scales" approach.

Since few battles last more than a day, the designers of a tactical game also don't worry about movement scale accuracy for long-distance travel.  If you plot out the distance a tactical unit ( pick just about any tactical game you like) could move in a week's or a month's time, you will find the unit to be moving much faster than is reasonable.

Such is the case with the 2300AD starship combat ( and, the same is true, incidentally, of starship combat in GDW's other roleplaying games -- in case you had not noticed).  You cannot use starship combat to guage in-system travel times over extended periods.  The rate in AUs of 0.645 x ( LY speed) is the correct rate to use. -- Joe D. Fugate Sr.

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