RE: FT Taskforce and Fleet Actions

I can't find it now, but didn't Jon (GZG) send out email that talked
about how ships jumped in system?  It's been at least a year or two ago.
If I remember correctly, ships made a few in system jumps on the way in
to get closer to the inner planets.

That would seem to save a lot of time vs. normal space transit.

Nathan

-----Original Message-----
From: Jerry Cantrill [mailto:jwcantrill@earthlink.net] 
Sent: Friday, August 10, 2001 9:01 AM
To: gzg-l@csua.berkeley.edu
Subject: Re: FT Taskforce and Fleet Actions

The distance scale is easy, what about the time scale?

For example, take as a base...

1 MU = 1000 km	and
1 Turn = 15 minutes

Maybe not THE standard, but does allow a convenient 1g = Thrust 8 ;)

At 1 MU = 1 hex = 1/2 AU, the distance scale is 1:74,799.

Keeping the same time scale would put a turn at 2.133 YEARS.

To allow any sense of reasonable reaction times, you would need to break
the movement into impulses (sorry, no better term comes to mind).

Lets take a smaller scale just for example...

1 MU = 1 hex = 2.88x10^6 km  and
1 Turn = 1 30-Day-Month = 4 1-Week-Impulses

At this is scale of 1:2880, most fleets from FB1 can move 1 hex per week
(NSL capital ships can move only once every other impulse) from a
standing start, and if Earth (52 hexes from the Sun) and Mars (79 hexes
from the Sun) were at their closest points in their orbits, like they
should be on 19 Jan 2183, they would be 27 hexes apart.

This FB1 fleet starting at Earth moves 4 hexes on turn 1,
turn 2 thrust +4 for  8 hexes  (8 hexes total),
turn 3 thrust +2 for 10 hexes (18 hexes total) and turns around (Cost?),
turn 4 thrust -4 for  6 hexes (24 hexes total),
turn 5 thrust -3 for  3 hexes and arrive at Mars (27 hexes total),
and finally thrust -3 to stop inertia on turn 6 and enter Mars orbit 6
months later.

I can hear you now; don't you know that the planets move? So, just move
Mars 24 hexes in orbit around the Sun each month (6 hexes each 1 week
impulse) and have fun working out your own movement plot.

Note, this does nothing for the size of your map, but make it bigger,
160 hexes wide and just the inner planets. But the time scale is at
least a little more workable, I think.

Now you could skew the distance to time scales if you want, and I'll
leave that up to you.