Steve Jackson Games - Site Navigation
Home General Info Follow Us Search Illuminator Store Forums What's New Other Games Ogre GURPS Munchkin Our Games: Home

Go Back   Steve Jackson Games Forums > Roleplaying > Traveller

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 11-14-2017, 08:03 AM   #11
robkelk
Untitled
 
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: between keyboard and chair
Default Re: What equipment should be provided?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Rupert View Post
You can buy weapons at some department stores in some places. A couple of generations ago it was commonplace - just go to the sporting goods department. Not so much longer before that you could mail order all sorts of stuff like that.
Fair enough - please add a note to my statement that it applies at GURPS Legality Class 3.
__________________
Rob Kelk
“Every man has a right to his own opinion, but no man has a right to be wrong in his facts.”
– Bernard Baruch,
Deming (New Mexico) Headlight, 6 January 1950
No longer reading these forums regularly.
robkelk is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-14-2017, 09:55 AM   #12
sir_pudding
Wielder of Smart Pants
 
sir_pudding's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ventura CA
Default Re: What equipment should be provided?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Rupert View Post
They don't even today.
Technically, no one uses Imperial measures anymore, the standards are no longer supported. The US has never used them, though.
sir_pudding is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-14-2017, 10:43 AM   #13
Mike Wightman
 
Mike Wightman's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Default Re: What equipment should be provided?

Feet, inches, yards, pounds, miles, gallons, pints - yup, the US has never used them. Nor does GURPS use them having adopted metric years ago...
oh, wait

NASA lost a Mars mission because of a unit error...
Mike Wightman is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-14-2017, 10:57 AM   #14
sir_pudding
Wielder of Smart Pants
 
sir_pudding's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ventura CA
Default Re: What equipment should be provided?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike Wightman View Post
Feet, inches, yards, pounds, miles, gallons, pints - yup, the US has never used them. Nor does GURPS use them having adopted metric years ago...
On B288 a gallon of water weighs 8 lbs not 10 lbs, and the same thing is true if I buy a gallon of water at the store. If California Department of Weights and Measures used the Imperial standards for volume, I would be getting 43% more gas for my money, too.

Also I am not dry goods, but I still weigh 220 lbs and ten of me would one me too many for a ton, not a little less than one.

Last edited by sir_pudding; 11-14-2017 at 12:06 PM.
sir_pudding is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-14-2017, 12:12 PM   #15
Mike Wightman
 
Mike Wightman's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Default Re: What equipment should be provided?

We brits revised our imperial units, you colonials continued to use the pre-revised version for your weights and measures. There have been changes over time I will grant you but inch, foot, yard, mile, pound remain the same, mind you we still use miles in the UK and I can only tell you my weight in stones and pounds and my height in feet and inches...
"However, in the U.S. the term "imperial" is often used colloquially in reference to the U.S. system."

Last edited by Mike Wightman; 11-14-2017 at 12:19 PM.
Mike Wightman is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-14-2017, 12:23 PM   #16
sir_pudding
Wielder of Smart Pants
 
sir_pudding's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ventura CA
Default Re: What equipment should be provided?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike Wightman View Post
We brits revised our imperial units, you colonials continued to use the pre-revised version for your weights and measures.
The US Customary system was never officially called "Imperial". Prior to 1824 that system was just English common measures.
Quote:
"However, in the U.S. the term "imperial" is often used colloquially in reference to the U.S. system."
Which is technically incorrect.
sir_pudding is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-14-2017, 12:27 PM   #17
SteveS
 
Join Date: Nov 2013
Location: near Seattle WA USA
Default Re: What equipment should be provided?

Many British imperial units remain in customary use in the US, but apparently liquid volume units were not fully standardized when the US and the British Empire parted ways, so when the standards settled, the US had four quart gallons and the British Empire had five quart gallons. I don't know whether US gallons have ever been a customary unit anywhere else.

So it's fair to say that the customary units in the US are "Imperial, with US liquid units". But because the rest of the former British Empire has done away with the old Imperial units, it probably avoids confusion most to just call the units in customary US use "US units", even if they originated in the British Empire (again except for liquid units).

As for the units used in the Third Imperium, I think Traveller history has made metric the standard, with the addition of the dton. If the history defines how that came about, I haven't seen it. If I had to make up an explanation, I'd give a history like this:
- Vilani units were dominant before the encounter with the Terrans.
- Throughout the Interstellar Wars there was* a hodgepodge of Vilani, metric, and US units in use (with Vilani units dominant in anything Vilani or reverse engineered by the Solomani).
- The dton caught on even with Vilani, because of the practical appeal of a unit that was so close to one one-hundredth of the minimum size of a jump-capable ship, but they refused to acknowledge that the unit was adopted from the rimward barbarians.
- Early in the Rule of Man, an administrator campaigned for standardization on metric. The campaign was most successful on worlds with strong anti-Vilani sentiments and their commercial dependents, and on worlds depopulated by plagues, but largely rejected in the old Vilani core. The Standard Day of 86400 seconds caught on in commercial timekeeping.
- During the Long Night, worlds generally stuck with whatever was popular by the end of the Rule of Man. Lots of locally customized units developed, particularly in the measurement of time. The 365 day Standard Year (dropping the complicated Gregorian leap year rules) caught on in a few places where enough trade carried on for multi-world timekeeping to remain useful.
- Sylea was a world that had adopted metric before the Long Night, and part of a region where the Standard Day and Standard Year persisted for multi-world timekeeping. It carried metric, the Standard Day, Standard Year, and dton into use as Third Imperium standards.

Some other standards are mentioned in canon, particularly in the area of timekeeping. For examples, the Zhodani have their years and olympiads, the Aslan have their time units, Hivers have their base-six units, and the Vargr have their typical disunity.

* Should this be "was" because "hodgepodge" is singular, or "were" because "units" is plural? Hmmm.
SteveS is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-14-2017, 12:40 PM   #18
sir_pudding
Wielder of Smart Pants
 
sir_pudding's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ventura CA
Default Re: What equipment should be provided?

Quote:
Originally Posted by SteveS View Post
Many British imperial units remain in customary use in the US,
No they aren't. The "Imperial System" was established in 1824 and the US Customary system wasn't in any way based on on it. The Department of Commerce maintains the Federal weights and measures standards and the individual States have their own copies of these. These standards were created and are maintained without any reference to the ones in London (which are no longer maintained).

Quote:
So it's fair to say that the customary units in the US are "Imperial, with US liquid units". But because the rest of the former British Empire has done away with the old Imperial units, it probably avoids confusion most to just call the units in customary US use "US units", even if they originated in the British Empire (again except for liquid units).
There are other significant differences. US Customary does not use stones and the US ton is 240 lbs lighter than the Imperial ton was.
sir_pudding is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-14-2017, 02:57 PM   #19
johndallman
Night Watchman
 
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
Default Re: What equipment should be provided?

Quote:
Originally Posted by sir_pudding View Post
These standards were created and are maintained without any reference to the ones in London (which are no longer maintained).
The British now define the yard, pound and gallon in metric units, so the old physical standards are obsolete. The US uses the same metric definitions of the yard and pound, but not the gallon.
johndallman is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-14-2017, 04:14 PM   #20
sir_pudding
Wielder of Smart Pants
 
sir_pudding's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ventura CA
Default Re: What equipment should be provided?

Quote:
Originally Posted by johndallman View Post
The British now define the yard, pound and gallon in metric units, so the old physical standards are obsolete. The US uses the same metric definitions of the yard and pound, but not the gallon.
Yes in that sense the US Customary System also (nearly) no longer exists.
sir_pudding is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Fnords are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 07:47 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.