Black Globes revisited

A thread of 2 messages, 9 November 1990 to 12 November 1990, in the order they were sent.

#1743 Black Globes revisited

Robert S. Dean · 9 November 1990

Having left my rules at home today, I am winging this response.  I would agree
with everyone who traces the origin of the black globe to Pournelle's Langston
Field (I think it showed up in a Pournelle book set in that universe prior to
the collaberation with Niven on Mote, but I could be wrong.)

In any case, to refer to the current Travller black globe as "the ultimate
defense" when it will eventually overload and destroy your ship in a huge
explosion is, in my opinion, overstating the case a trifle.  Now if someone
who has the books handy can tell me how much energy the globe needs to be
overloaded on, say a 100,000ton ship with a Jump-4 drive (I think we still
use the jump drive as an energy sink even though the Starship Operators
Manual has disallowed jumping using the stored energy) we could make a
considered opinion.

All I remember is that in High Guard, I never considered it worthwhile
because the addition to the armor class while flickering with any BG generator
you could build in the Imperium didn't seem to be worth the possibility of
being blown to atoms by the overload.  This leaves out the tactical surprise
considerations.  (And so without reanalyzing the situation, you won't find BGs
on my latest imperial navy design proposals.)

Rob Dean

#1751 Re: Black globes revisited

Adrian Hurt · 12 November 1990 · reply to #1743

"Robert S. Dean" [email removed] writes:
> In any case, to refer to the current Travller black globe as "the ultimate
> defense" when it will eventually overload and destroy your ship in a huge
> explosion is, in my opinion, overstating the case a trifle.

I'd refer to the MT white globe as "the ultimate defense".  Getting one is
a neat trick, though! ;-)
>							      Now if someone
> who has the books handy can tell me how much energy the globe needs to be
> overloaded on, say a 100,000ton ship with a Jump-4 drive (I think we still
> use the jump drive as an energy sink even though the Starship Operators
> Manual has disallowed jumping using the stored energy) we could make a
> considered opinion.

>From High Guard, as far as I can remember:

Tons of capacitors available = displacement of ship * jump no. * 0.5%
1 ton of capacitors stores 36 E.P.
1 E.P. = ??? MW

I say scrap that part of the Starship Operator's Manual.  High Guard said
you could use stored energy for jumping, or anything else which needed
energy.  Which meant that when I used a black globe, I usually ran as
much as possible off the stored energy, to reduce the chances of an
overload.  The most important calculation every turn was how much energy
I'd used, how much I'd absorbed, and thus whether or not I could afford
to keep the globe on next turn.

- - --
 "Keyboard?  How quaint!" - M. Scott

 Adrian Hurt			     |	JANET:  [email removed]
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