> On Sep 19, 2021, at 7:10 AM, Mark Urbin - eclipse at urbin.net (via tml list) <xxxxxx@simplelists.com> wrote:
>
> On 9/18/2021 7:24 PM, Greg Nokes - greg at nokes.name (via tml list) wrote:
>>> I really liked some of the concepts that FFS v1 brought to the table. I also enjoyed some of the crunchy bits back then. Today, probably not so much. It’s a time thing.
>
> I was on the FFS (TNE) beta mailing list.  It was a serious nerdfest, and mean that in the best possible way.
>
> These rule sets are good "single player" Traveller option for gearheads to get their gear fu on.
>
> Clearly not for everyone, but if you have a gearhead in your group, it can be used to provide custom items to flesh our your game.

FF&S released a wave of creativity on this list that has yet to be equaled (imo). Orbital grav skateboards?  Barbie’s Own Particle Weapon? Supersonic grav bikes with no enclosure?

This was the greatest (IMO) disappointment with FFS2; a whole lot of work went into SSDS and QSDS that were meant to be able to make the same things at differing levels of complexity, so you didn’t HAVE to do the nerdfest thing with FF&S.  QSDS let you make, say, a 400T J2 freighter in about four minutes; SSDS would let you customize it a liittle, and FFS would let you lovingly detail every rivet and toggle switch.

And then the whole thing got thrown out the window by the rest of all the incompatible stuff in T4; not to mention the stunning typo fest that was the final book, when it was typset by someone who had no concept of ‘equations’ .

--
Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs