Re: New guy

"Bell, Brian K" wrote:

> Welcome to the list!
>
> Inertialess drives? Hmmm. An interesting idea. A assume that you are
> thinking of something like flying saucers that can make right angle
turns
> and such.
>

Actually, I was thinking more about Lensmen.

>
> I have not heard anyone on the list mentioning it, but it would be
> interesting. Especially if pitted against a force using vector
movement (see
> Fleet Book).
>

That wouldn't really work.  Totally different movement scales.	Even a
single
point of thrust would produce insane speeds (note:  speed, not velocity
for
inertialess).

>
> I assume that movement would be at a fixed rate like fighters.
>

Yep.

Here's the quick version:

With inertialess, you instantly reach the speed where your thrust
balances
against the resistance of the interstiller medium.  Which means that you
decide
how clean the vacuum is and assign that game a thrust multiplier.  Each
point of
thrust gives you X*thrust movement in a given direction and pivots are
free.

If you stop thrusting or you hit something, you stop.  Period.

If you turn off your drive, you disapear from the map into the spot you
are in.
If more than one ship does so within Y(haven't decided yet) inches or
once
you've reached your objective, each player picks the spot he wishes his
ship to
appear in.  Then he rolls 3d6 (2d6 for small playing areas) and
*multiplies*
them together and a d12 for direction.	That's how far off the mark the
ship is
when it appears.  Then roll the 3d6 and 1d12 again to find the current
velocity
of the ship (unless the ship originated from this area).  This is
because the
ship retains its velocity from whenever it went inertialess.  Note that
all
ships that started inertialess at the same velocity leave it at the same
velocity.  Without the inertialess drive on, ships should use VMS.

Weapons fire gets tricky since beams don't work at FTL speeds (if you
try, the
ghost of Einsein shows up and smashes your ship with a big club).  So
you have
to rely on inertialess missiles.  These travel until they are in contact
with
the enemy and then explode.  If used while not inertialess, the missiles
would
act as p-torps.

>
> Depending on how big a game area is used it might help or handicap the
> player using inertialess drives. The list has discussed several times
how
> this effects play. Some of the list members use cm instead of inches
for
> tactical units (tu). Also, how you handle units moving off the table
is a
> factor. Players who use cm or "floating tables" for off table movement
seem
> to run their ships at much greater speeds than those who use inches or
have
> negative consequences for moving off the table.
>
> If the inertialess drive force is as fast as the force using vector or
> cinematic movement, it could be a benefit. If the vector or cinematic
> movement forces could go much faster, it would be a detriment (except
vs.
> missiles).
>

Nope, the fun thing about inertialess is that except in an *absolute*
vacuum (in
which case the ship would go an infinite speed), inertialess ships stop
when the
stop thrusting.

I suppose that it would be possible to eventually design a ship with
fine enough
control over thrust that it could use inertialess while at sub-light
speeds.

The major restriction that I'm puting on them is that without
super-science,
they can't see much except big things that don't move and things that
have an
active inertialess system.  They *are* traveling faster than light and
the view
out the ports is changing far faster than most computers could handle. 
It also
keeps them from totally dominating other ships.

--

Jeff Miller
Program Director/Webmaster for Agamemcon IV

Burbank Airport Hilton	--  June 23-25, 2000
http://www.agamemcon.org

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