Re: [FT][OT] Ship Classification Grid

On Tue, Nov 30, 2004 at 11:40:12AM -0000, Samuel Penn wrote:

>Still think there should be a difference between thrust and
>delta vee. An ion drive and an orion drive may have the same
>delta vee, but are very different in military terms. This is
>of more importance to rec.arts.sf.science (where I first saw
>it) though than FT, since in the latter all ships have
>infinite delta vee but limited thrust.

I agree with your usage; deltaV is _total_ velocity change, after all,
rather than instantaneous acceleration, and those are different
characteristics (the patroller vs the interceptor). These might even be
worth separating out; certainly "defensive weaponry" is hard to
classify under the current system, particularly weaponry designed to
defend _other_ ships.

I suspect the surface of a hypersphere may be a good bet for adding
more characteristics.

R