Re: hyperspace (was: cloaking device rules)

joachim wrote:
>Warp bubbles, tachyon beams and breaking through
>reality are all well and good but to me, that's not what FTL means.
>To me, FTL means going really fast.  I don't know if it even means
>going faster than light - who cares?

FWIW FTL=Faster Than Light.  The idea is any system capable of
propelling
your ship faster than light.  The game is generic, so this drive can be
anything you want it to be.  I prefer jump/displacement drives myself,
based
on theoretical physics.  You could also say your ship uses some magnetic
harness to latch on to a passing space cow that permeates the membrane
between space and time, only stopping to feed on the radiated remains of
space travellers who thought nuclear weapons had no effect in outer
space. ;);)

>All you have to do is get
>yourself going _really_fast_ and you'll get away from the people who
>are shooting at you.

If all that matters is going really fast by just hard acceleration while
less than light speed, you will probably not outrun the majority of the
weapon systems available.  Not to mention the incredible forces placed
on
your crew or the possible effects of your drives output in it's
environment(imagine the target signature generated by reaction mass type
drives propelling a few hundred thousand tons of technology under hard
acceleration or even gravity waves by a gravity drive - it's like
saying,
"Here I am, please shoot me!").  Most FTL drives decribed in sci-fi like
jump drives, warp drives, etc. remove some of the effects of normal
space
acceleration like high g-forces, but they tend to have very
undersireable
effects when they malfunction.

>That's what FTL means to me.  Getting away from
>the people who are shooting at me.  So while I like the idea of
>minimum times for the effect, or the idea that the effect continues
>not only during the acceleration phase but also during the
>decelleration phase, I can't justify it enough to actually use it.

If I use FTL in a FT scenario, I plan to incorporate the FT rules to
simulate that chance of failure when making a hasty departure, otherwise
players might abuse FTL if it was too easy.

Mike Miserendino