Re: [FT]SML question

On Sat, 16 Jun 2001 11:04:34 -0400, Richard and Emily Bell
<rlbell@sympatico.ca> wrote:

> Due to the inherent inaccurracies of the jump, the tug must announce
>its presence, so the stingboats can find it.  Once the interceptors
detect the
>tug, the interceptors jump directly there.  

Unless I'm missing something, why is the tug unable to jump to the
stingboats
(because of inaccuracies during the jump) but the interceptors can jump
on the
tug without the same inaccuracies?

I wouldn't do this, anyway. I would have a pre-arranged drop off point
picked
out. The tug would FTL to that point. If it misses the point due to jump
inaccuracies, it would move  in real space to that point. The stingboats
would
go to that point in space for pick up, probably via an indirect route,
if
possible.

> (one
>unanswered die of beam fire will take a long time to destroy a horde of
>stingboats, but the interceptor has all day).

Well, not really. At FT's de facto scale, even a thrust 4 vessel can
cross the
distance from the Earth to the moon in 4 hours. If FTL ships don't have
an
accuracy of greater than 500,000 km, then your FTL interceptors have a
big
problem.

Allan Goodall		       awg@sympatico.ca
Goodall's Grotto:  http://www.vex.net/~agoodall

"Now, see, if you combine different colours of light,
 you get white! Try that with Play-Doh and you get
 brown! How come?" - Alan Moore & Kevin Nolan,