Re: FB - Thrust Ratings for Freighters

At 10:25 AM 1/23/99 -0500, IAS wrote:
>Sean Bayan Schoonmaker wrote:
>> This road leads to differing thrust according to fuel and ammunition
loads.
>> I don't even want to go there.
>>
>> Schoon
>
>It is not as bad as you think.  You have to substantially decrease mass
to
gain
>thrust.  The user friendly way to do this is to make a scale Effective
Thrust
>on one side, and number holds filled on the other.
[snip]
>This will allow frieghters to dump cargo to increase thrust in
emergency
>situations.

True... kinda.	The thing is, who's to say what is *in* the holds?  If
one
hold is full of iron ore, and another full of... of... I dunno, goose
feathers, they are going to have a considerably different mass to begin
with.  While everything in ship construction goes by mass, the cargo
holds
actually take up *volume*.

So I'd opt for keeping things simple, as well.	Besides, instead of
having
thrust go *up* as holds are emptied, I'd rather have thrusts go *down*
when
the holds are filled... after all, warships won't be packed solid with
stuff like merchies might, so the thrust-2 on that freighter may be it's
max thrust when empty. ^_^

					Aaron Teske
					ateske@HICom.net
LAUNCH DAY!
A totally unprovoked attack on peaceful neighbors. Must be the race 
file. Does strange things.
		--Rick Kujecko, on the War Monger PRT in Stars!