Re: New guy (Inertialess)

Michael Llaneza wrote:

> >>  >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.
> >
> >I wasn't relying on the shockwave but the heat.  Maybe just fly over
> >a mini fission
> >reactor and pull the rods.  Just China Syndrome the ship....
>
> Heat is IR radiation, which is (can be) treated as particles
> impacting the ship.

Yeah, I know.  Maybe the bomb grapples or otherwise sticks to the enemy
ship?  At
any rate the ships shouldn't just sit there and stare at each other. 
<grin>

> There's a handwave available in that there is
> always some resistance to the ship, so the inertialess drive can't
> avoid 100% of the energy transfer, and a big warhead might transfer
> enough energy to hurt the ship. This is all pretty clear in GURPS
> Lensman
>

It's been a whil since I read that supliment.

>
> >The hardest thing for me was figuring out a way to damage someone
while going
> >faster than light using what we know about physics.
> >
> >Maybe a tachyon beam?  You could probably only produce one while
> >going faster than
> >light and it would not effect anyone going slower than light.
> >Unfortuantly, within
> >the ship, relative to the ship, everything is going at speeds that
> >are relatively
> >slower than light.
>
> Beams in the Lensman series are usually described (in the novels) as
> "a corruscating beam of pure force."
>

Uh, OK.  <grin>

I could handwave it like that too.  I would just rather avoid it.

>
> >  > 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.
> >
> >Yeah, but how often is *that* going to happen.  Unless you are
> >referring to the
> >inertail velocity.  But thinking about how you can fire a beam while
going FTL
> >gives me a headache.  <grin>
>
> The target is tractored at short range, you just have to manage that.
> In fact, in GURPS Lensman all beam combat requires that the ships be
> tractored together or the impact and recoil of the beams would throw
> the ships around like a leaf in a hurricane, explosions are equally
> ineffective.
>

The trouble with that is that I'm not entirely comforable with tractor
beams.
<grin>

>
> >I had been thinking about shape.  I figured that Partially
> >Airodynamic would give
> >the ship a +1 on their movement multiplier.	Fully Airodynamic would
> >operate like
> >partial, the extra airodynamics would be offset by the drag of teh
lifting
> >surfaces.  Alternatively, I would propose another shape Needle
> >Shaped.  It would
> >give a +2 on the movement modifier but would function in an
> >atmosphere, it acts as
> >Partially Airodynamic.
>
> And streamlining is already in the FT design sequence, so we're set.
>

Yep.  Where possible, use existing rules.

>
> >>  >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.
> >>
> >
> >Yep.
> >
> >I want to come up with a functional, not uber movement system.
>
> Barring a requirement for ultra-rare minerals (like GDW did with
> stutterwarp in T2300) a Bergenholm drive from the Lensman series is
> an uber drive. Now a toned down version with no (or minimal)
> acceleration limits, fast turns and a fixed but high maximum speed
> would be deadly but not uber.
>

Yep.  I figured there were three ways that you could handle the
inertialess/inertail conflicts.  One, assume that innertialess ships
move too fast
to shoot at or be shot by inertial ships.  The second is to balance slow
inertialess (semi-inertialess) movement.  The third is to assume that
combat canot
take place while inertialess.  In tht case the rules are functionally
the same as
those already in the book.

--

Jeff Miller
Program Director/Webmaster for Agamemcon IV

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