Re: Time/Space scale

Noam wrote:

> My personal preference is to make 1 thrust = 1g. It feels right that
6-8g
> thrust should be close to the max a crew would want to sustain in 
> combat for any length of time, compensators on no. 

FB1 doesn't have any strict limit on the maximum thrust rating, though
it is very difficult to get a higher thrust rating than 18 at the
moment <g>

> As for the distance scaele, while 1"=1000km is OK, I have a few 
> problems with it. Aesthetically, (my personal taste) it makes combat 
> ranges a bit too big for "cinematic" scale.

Well, yes. Cinematic scale battles should require all ships to be
within visual range of one another before anyone may open fire :-)

> Pragmatically, it makes asteroid- or asteroid field centered combat
> rediculous, since there's only one asteroid (Ceres) that even
approaches > 1" diameter at that scale,

That's why you use the MT "meteor swarm" rules instead, and saves the
FT2 "asteroid" rules for when you slam into planets or moons :-)

> I'd like a distance scale that would make a good sized
> rock like Ceres 10" across - or 100 km to mu.

Still a bit too big for *real* Cinematic scale, but better than 1000 km
per mu <g>

> That'd make make most planets 
> too big for a play area, but, as in several  scenarios, planet
surfaces
> could make up one edge of a play area (with gravity effects). That
may 
> wreak havoc with the time scale though.

Not too badly, I think. 100km/mu and thrust-1 = 9.81 m/s^2 gives 1 turn
~143s, or about 2.4 minutes.

Later,

Oerjan Ohlson
oerjan.ohlson@telia.com

"Life is like a sewer.
  What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it."
- Hen3ry