Re: Planetary invasion ramblings (longish)

Jeff spake thusly upon matters weighty: 

Thanks. I am now informed (if we believe the spreadsheets....)

Tom. 

> At 02:04 PM 6/15/98 -0500, you wrote:
> >Jeff spake thusly upon matters weighty: 
> >
> >Sure, there may be a few left behind and your point about SDBs
> >> is a good one (though less so with the advent of the FB, I suspect)
> >
> >Why? I assume even with FB it is quite feasible to design a non-FTL
> >capable ship which (by virtue of not needing the FTL drives) has more
> >hull capacity (and maybe space freed up by fuel) to accomodate more
> >armour, weapons and ECM.... and costs less.... therefore making
> >a wonderful planetary defence option.
> 
> According to Schoon's spreadsheet (which is all I've seen of the FB so
far)
> the difference between FTL and non-FTL ships is 10% of the ship's mass
> rather than the 25% is used to be under the FT II rules.  Or, coming
at it
> from the other direction, an SDB used to have one and half times the
> payload of a FTL ship (75% vs 50%) for all classes and/or speeds of
ship.  
> 
> This was a very significant advantage.  Now (assuming average hull
> integrity) the difference is 20% more payload on a thrust-2 ship, 25%
more
> on a thrust-4, 33% on a thrust-6 and 50% more only on thrust-8 ships. 
In
> most cases, that extra space will probably go into drives or hull
instead.
> In this context, the non-FTL option is just one of many design
trade-offs
> available rather than the "across-the-board" bonus it used to be.
> 
> So, yes, they are still a viable option...just less so, as I said.
> 
> Jeff
> 
> 
> 
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