Re: Vector Rules / Inertial dampers

Excerpts from FT: 8-Oct-97 RE: Vector Rules / Inertial.. by Tim
Status: RO

Jones@Smallworld.co. 
> Adding more faggots to the Burning Heretic of Vector Movement

<grin>

> What about inertial dampers then? The ships in FT must have them
otherwise
> the accelerations they make would liquify the crew. I don't know if
anyone
> has worked out the G force of a Thrust of +3 but I imagine its got to
> be pretty high and if we take Star Trek or Honor Harrington then we're

> in the region of 500g. You have to have inertial dampers or you're
salsa.

Hmm, Thrust of 3 is more likely to be on the slower side -- I imagined
~400 Gs was T2 (largest SDNs) so maybe 425 or 450 for T3.  But
anyway....

> If you have inertial dampers why can't you use them to remove your
> rotational inertia?

I think it depends on how your inertial dampers work.  In the "Gateway"
series of books, for example, and Niven's Known Space gravity planar
(which I think was an inertial damper), they affected the whole ship,
allowing for some radical maneuvers or, at least, radical acceleration. 
Gateway ships accelerated *past* the speed of light (neat trick), for
example, by damping out *everything*.

Honor Harrington's inertial dampers don't seem to work the same way. 
Instead, they just seem to dampen the effects of any maneuvering on
whatever's inside the ship -- basically, it allows the ships to
accelerate at several hundred G's so that the story won't take too long.
^_-  I'm thinking of something along the lines of Star Trek/Star Wars
gravity generators -- ever wondered how come everyone could always
*walk*, even on board itty-bitty ships like the Falcon?  It isn't 'cause
they've plated the bottom of the ship with neutronium, that's for
sure....

		    Aaron Teske
		    Mithramuse+@cmu.edu