Re: Safe speeds

On Tue, 14 Dec 1999, Magic wrote:

> From: <kaladorn@fox.nstn.ca>
> Sent: Monday, December 13, 1999 11:07 PM
> 
> > At the very outside, it'd be Vmax = Rsensor. That is to say, I
> > wouldn't want to move further in a turn than I could see.... I'd hit
> > stuff (almost) without seeing it coming. But even that I figured was
> > too high.
>
> As for Vmax for a fleet I also feel it would be lower than Rsensor. 
You
> don't want to outfly your eyes.

this isn't really true: in FT, time proceeds in jumps, as it is broken
up
into turns. in reality (at the level we're working at), time is
continuous. thus, in FT, if you're doing 100 mu/turn, then each turn,
you
move from where you were into an area that was previously outside your
sensor range. similarly, you can move from outside the enemy's C4 range
into your own C2 range in one turn (or at any rate, Oerjan can :) ).
these
things don't happen in reality: your sensor range always extends some
distance ahead of you, so you're always flying into scanned space.
similarly, when closing there must always be a time when you are in C4
range but not C2 range (although it may not be very long).

what all this means is that the Vmax = Rsensor limit is artificial; what
if turns were 10 times longer? Rsensor would stay the same (more or
less),
so Vmax would stay the same, but since the turn was longer, this would
mean the real limiting speed had decreased by a factor of 10: you can
cover the same distance per turn, which is a tenth the distance per
second. what is needed is some sort of characteristic time to put into
the
equations, to link distance (Rsensor) to speed (Vmax); this is what Tom
B
originally tried to do.

personally, i don't think it's reasonable to work out a safe speed from
thinking about collisions; things big enough to be a collision risk are
going to be detectable at vast ranges: in open space, collisions are
incredibly rare. rather, i think speed has to be a product of tactical
considerations, like staying in weapon range of the opponent.

Oerjan's experience shows that on a large table (ie when using cm),
speeds
go up; i would be interested to see what happened if MU were, say,
twelfths of an inch, or the playing area was an entire tennis court, and
what would happen if the limits were pushed further and further. would
speeds be proportionately higher, so with 1 mu = 1 mm, people are flying
at speeds of several hundred mu/turn, or would some sort of limiting
speed, based on the need to remain close to the enemy, emerge? i suspect
a
power-law scaling would emerge: people often flew slowly (where 'slow'
is
some common speed, maybe 4 mu/turn, maybe 20 mu/turn, maybe 100
mu/turn),
sometimes flew fast, rarely flew very fast and occasionally flew
extremely
fast.

in effect, i believe that Oerjan is flying too slowly. i also believe
that
i should not drink any more coffee tonight.

tom