Re: New guy

At 4:30 PM -0800 11/4/99, Jeff Miller wrote:
>"Bell, Brian K" wrote:
>
>
>Actually, I was thinking more about Lensmen.
>
>  >
>
>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.

Mmmmmmmm..... problem with that is that the ship bounces away from 
the shockwave. The closest to a missile used in Lensman is a big 
honking shell that travels down a force field tunnel to impact a 
tractored ship. For beams, I think the ghost of Einstein blinks if 
your relative velocity to your target is < c.

>  >
>>  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.

or fine enough control over its drag. Varialble geometry spacecraft 
anyone ? FTL Solar sailers perhaps ?

>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.

Like stutterwarp, only worse.

Michael Carter Llaneza
Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1991-1950
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If you hear a ringing in your ears, don't answer it.
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