Re: FT: FTL Smorgasboard

----- Original Message -----
From: B Lin <lin@rxkinetix.com>
To: <gzg-l@csua.berkeley.edu>
Sent: Friday, March 22, 2002 9:18 PM
Subject: RE: FT: FTL Smorgasboard

> Some clairfications and additions:
>
> Manticore controls a "junction" that goes to 6(?) terminal wormholes.

Check this for pre-info on the latest HH story. They`ve just figured out
the
NEXT wormhole terminus (or almost).

http://jiltanith.thefifthimperium.com/

> For normal FTL there is the grav drive or "impeller wedge" which
creates a
>super-high gravity field which draws the ship forward and has the
secondary
>property of being impenetrable by physical and energy based weapons.

The wedge is just there for propultion, either in hyperspace or normal
space. Hyperspace can be thought of as normal space but with the points
in
the dimetion (hyperband) below you as closer together. EG-Points A and B
could be 1Meter apart in normal space, 0.5 in the alpha band, 0.25 in
the
beta ETC.

> The energy requirement for this is huge and the ships are dependent on
>"Warshawski sails" to draw energy from "grav waves."

Grav waves allow a ship to use the enormous energies contained within
for
propultion and as a extra large sump for their inertial compensators.
This
allows any ship in a grav wave to out accelerate any ship outside a
wave,
and use the grav wave as a cushion for translating between hyperbands
(or
ever into/outof normal space).

>Hyperspace is achieved by accelerating to a significant fraction of the
speed of >light (0.3C) using the grav drive, then engaging the
Warshawski
sails.

A ship can enter hyper at any speed BELOW 0.3C (the slower the better).
Any
faster and nasty things happen to the ship trying such. The "Warshawski
Sails" are a modification of the wedge system that allows the ship to
use
the grav wave for propultion. The sails themselves are not required for
hypetravel, only to survive a grav wave (and for transiting a wormhole).

> --Binhan

This is not a critisism, only correcting minor errors. I say this
because I
use a simular background for my FT games. We have wormholes/warppoints
(a
bit more common than in HH, but not by much), and hyper travel is
instead of
a series of instanteneous jumps, you travel in hyper at a speed equal to
your normal space thrust rating in LYs per day. Without FTL coms (which
I
don`t allow), this make high thrust curriers very useful (and high
thrust
BC`s and such useful as a rapid reaction force).

BIF