Rob Dean:
>Meson Gun tanks: There's one thing to consider about the meson gun
>tank, if you are going to play using the Striker rules--it's considered
>to be an indirect fire weapon, due to the difficulty of adjusting the
>meson speed to decay at the exact target point (and other scientific
>double-talk). We could debate whether or not this is reasonable, but
>it is the rule. The suggestion of a tank sized meson screen is not
>without merit, especially when you consider that the the batlefiel
>meson accelerator is equivalent to a Meson Gun-1 (I seem to recall
>that ship mounted meson guns get a 10cm/size burst radius), which means
>that you wouldn't need much screen power to foul it up.
According to Striker Book 2 (which I finally re-located), a meson gun is
indirect fire because it can hit targets behind obstacles, and because
precise ranging is needed for it's use. Also, according to Striker,
indirect fire weapons CAN be used in direct fire mode, if the
appropriate fire-control system is available.
As to the Meson Gun - 1, I find no evidence that it exists in MT or High
Guard. It seems to start at Meson Gun-3. A meson gun-3 does have a
danger space about that of the battlefield meson gun, but requires
25000MW, as opposed to 250MW for the battlefield version, and occupies
650Kl, as opposed to 15Kl. They are both TL15. Odd, that these
differences should be...
My problem with a tank-sized meson screen is that a meson screen
generator has minimum size of 215Kl at TL15- (or 108Kl at TL16), which
is rather large for a tank. And if they can be made smaller, what is to
keep ships from mounting them?
>Armor thickness: I recently came to the conclusion that you were only
>to worry about armor volume in Striker as far as weight and density
>were concerned
DOn't forget that the armour volume is based on the EXTERNAL dimensions,
not the internal ones. So armour mass would need to be calculated using
external dimensions.
Richard Johnson:
>What was the name of the French field marshall who said in 1911 that
>the airplane was a neat contraption, but had no military value
>whatsoever?
And Vannevar Bush said (in 1946 or 1947): "There has been a great deal
said about a three-thousand-mile rocket. In my opinion such a thing is
impossible for many years. I think we can leave that out of our
thinking."
Hans:
>About there being only 4 places in the Spinward Marches where
>TL 15 ship maintenance can be performed: I'm going to let naval
>bases be capable of maintaining ships in any case, but looking
>through _World Builder's Handbook_ I realized that things aren't
>quite that bad. There is a very good chance (5/6) that worlds
>with an A or B starport will have a Space Technology Level that
>is at least 1 higher than the High Common TL (which is the one
>shown on the listings). That gives us three more worlds in the
>marches that can help out. Furthermore, worlds with A or B
>starports have a better chance of being xenophilic, and
>xenophilic worlds has a good chance of having a STL _two_
>higher than their HCTL, so some of the TL 13 worlds may be able
>to help out too. Perhaps the three with naval bases (Efate,
>Lunion and Strouden)?
You overlook that there is a random role in there. Spaceship TL can be
up to SIX levels lower than the "average". However, when we generated
Efate for our campaign, it built TL15 starships, and turned out to be
THE main fleet base during the FFW. It also will be the reason that the
Vargr won't make much progress against Regina and Aramis subsectors,
when that part of the Rebellion hits our campaign (late this summer, I
expect).
>(The flip side is that TL 15 planets have a good chance of being
>an STL of 16 or 17 and a small chance of having one of _18_!!!
>And some of the TL 16 planets of Massila Sector could have one
>of 19...
>Not in my universe, though, as I don't allow any Imperial planet
>to be more than borderline TL 16 with anything mass-producable.)
In ours, Vincennes can build TL18 spacecraft (at prototype stage so
far), and it's R&D is producing experimental TL18 ships with TL19
weaponry.
Brandon Cope:
>One other thing to consider about pirates: they might not want (or
>need) to take the ship they are plundering. I suppose most people out
>there are aware of the tremendous costs and construction times of new
>ships? So why would pirates capture frighters unless they really needed
>the ships, or unless they really had no time to offload the valuable
>part of the cargo? You could (and would) end up with a situation where
>the pirates were literally taking the ships faster than planets could
>manufacture them. This WOULD put an end to piracy, as there would be no
>prey left.
What a silly idea (leaving the ships behind). The ship is almost
invariably worth more than the cargo is. Take the ship, and leave the
cargo, if anything.
And any individual pirate is NOT going to think in terms of leaving the
prey alive for the next bunch to come along. If a pirate steals a few
ships, he gets rich, Rich, RICH. Then he retires when the merchant traffic
dries up. Why should he care about other pirates' problems?
Later...
- -- Via DLG Pro v0.985b
[email removed]
I have learned to use the word "impossible" with the greatest caution.
--W. von Braun