RE: FT Taskforce and Fleet Actions

At 9:23 AM -0400 8/7/01, Izenberg, Noam wrote:
>
>In that case individual asteroids could be the targets of fleet
actions. But
>you'd never have more than one (or a binary pair (much) less than 1 MU
>across) on a FT tactical map during any single battle.

In some cases they should work out like islands in the WWII pacific 
campaign. Ideal locations for orbital fortresses where fighters and 
other non-ftl craft are based. It'd give you a more balanced 
disposition around the system when certain major planets are in 
concordance or in a major conjunction.

>
>The reason NASA has fits going through the field is _not_ because of
the
>hazard, but because its so hard to pass _close_ enough by an asteroid
to get
>bonus science on the way to your final objective. The Mathilde flyby
for
>NEAR and the Ida and Gaspra flybys for Galileo took a heck of alot of
>planningn to make happen at all.

Granted.

>As for FTL limits, I like the Idea of a System limit based on stellar
mass
>with commensurately smaller planetary limits. Scott field did a PBeM
where
>the planetary hyperlimit was a tactical consideration. He set the
system's
>"Hyperwall" - controlled by Starmass, if I recal, at a little over 1
AU. An
>Earthlike planet's hyperlimit wason the order of 200 MU.

Related to Mass seems to make sense in the Physics aren a. The 
distance per unit mass is the question. Planets like Jupiter would 
have something as well pushing that boundary out too.

>For Ryan's game scale, I'd up both of them. Make a Sol-type star's
hyperwall
>say 5 AU or 10 hexes. Make jupiter and saturn's hyperlimits 2 hexes and
>Neptue/Uranus 1 hex to keep the strategic scale rather than tactical.
>(that's a pretty steep exponent even so, given the sunis on the order
of
>1000 times Jupiter's mass. it measn that bases on outlying planets and
moons
>are more exposed than system cores, as well they should be.
>
>Or you could base hyperlimits or hyperwalls on some completely
different
>High-SF quality. For example, go whacked out and say the total biomass
on a
>planet determines the hyperlimit (Earth's would be say 5 or 10 AU). Or
you
>gould say that the FTL limit  is subject to hyperspace "tides" that
sweep in
>and out of the system based on some PSB mechanic. That could mean that
on
>rare occasions, even core worlds could be subject to direct assault,
and
>defensive fleet movements would have to take the tides into account.

That would make Close Binary Systems have no hyper limit what so
ever....

--
- Ryan Montieth Gill		DoD# 0780 (Smug #1) / AMA / SOHC -
- ryan.gill@SPAMturner.com  I speak not for CNN, nor they for me -
- rmgill@SPAMmindspring.com	     www.mindspring.com/~rmgill/ -