A thread of 4 messages, 3 May 1994 to 7 June 1994, in the order they were sent.
I just got an order from GDW the other day, and they included their latest catalog. At risk of sounding like a "Kremlin Watcher", possible implications in their product line caught my eye. To whit: _Dark Conspiracy_ is listed as out of print, and there was no sign of anything for _2300 AD_. Is this a new change, or did I just miss this a while ago?
Annoying statements on a variety of subjects:
Mark Cook:
> Old style rebreathers used CaCO3 to absorb CO2. Modern rebreathers
> crack the CO2 electrically and recycle the O2. This is the same
> method used aboard nuclear subs.
Interesting idea, but neither of the submarines I was on did this.
We just threw the CO2 overboard, and got our O2 by splitting seawater.
Steven M Bonneville:
> Per cubic meter of maneuver drive: (in metric tons)
> THRUST FUEL USE ...fuel per ton of thrust
> Daedalus drive: 1.5 ton 0.00050 ton/hr. 0.000334 ton/hr
> Fusion rocket 9.0 ton 0.00035 ton/hr. 0.000039 ton/hr
> HEPlaR drive: 33.4 ton 0.02917 ton/hr. 0.000873 ton/hr
Someone (specifically, Steven Bonneville) has misread those tables.
Fuel usage per ton of thrust is actually:
THRUST FUEL USE ...fuel per ton of thrust
Daedalus drive: 1.5 ton 0.00050 ton/hr. 0.000334 ton/hr
Fusion rocket 9.0 ton 0.00035 ton/hr. 0.00035 ton/hr
HEPlaR drive: 33.4 ton 0.02917 ton/hr. 0.000873 ton/hr
> The Daedalus drive is an order of magnitude *worse* in fuel
> efficiency than the conventional fusion rocket!!! Combined
> with its' worse thrust-to-mass ratio, the engine is fairly
> worthless.
Well, no. Not really. Actually, in terms of fuel usage, it is
SLIGHTLY better than the fusion rocket. But it will never be used if
fusion rockets are available, unless you can live with small
fractional-G acceleration.
> This suggests that there may be an advantage to using fusion rocket
> designs in some cases on a military vessel, perhaps as a second
> drive system.
I thought of this a while back. Military vessels designed by me (as
theoretical exercises, since we don't use TNE rules) have fusion rockets
INSTEAD of Heplar.
Tariq M. Rashid:
> First of all point blank range is the principal factor in determining
> short range. Given a barrel at 0 degree elevation and about 1.5m
> above the ground.
I wish that whichever idiot gave GDW that definition of "point-blank
range" had kept his ignorant mouth shut...
"point-blank range" has absolutely NOTHING to do with height of the
gun above the ground. It has much more to do with the little known
detail that bullets, upon leaving the barrel of any gun, rise above the
line of the barrel by a small amount. Point-blank range is the range
that the bullet has dropped BACK down to the line of the barrel after
that rise.
Consider this, btw. If you use GDW's definition of point-blank
range, then almost by definition, an anti-aircraft gun of a given muzzle
velocity will have a longer point-blank range than an anti-tank gun of
the same muzzle velocity (the anti-tank gun sits low to the ground
(maybe 2 ft up), while the AA gun sits higher up (typically 5-8 ft, back
when we built AA guns))...
David Johnson:
> The *RS* says that Imperial naval fleets, which are responsible for a
> single subsector, consist of "50-200 ships". It goes on to explain
> that these are battles, cruisers, carriers and some escorts. Given
> this I don't see it as completely unreasonable that the Sword Worlds,
> drawing from fewer than a complete subsector's worth of worlds, are
> only able to raise 42 ships. Yes, they may be more militarized (due
> to their culture and their Imperial experience) but they are also a
> frontier that is more thinly populated than the `average' Imperial
> subsector. Sure, they might have twice or three times that many ships
> so rather than just saying the answer *isn't* 42 :-) please suggest
> some alternative and provide a rationale.
More thinly populated??? The SW have around 30 gigapeople in them,
all reasonably high tech. Regina subsector can only claim about 7
gigapeople, Rhylanor about 25, Vilis less than 10...
Plus, of course, the 50-200 ships per subsector is ridiculously low
BY TCS STANDARDS. In my game, Neubayern had several thousand warships,
New Colchis had more like 10,000 ships. All the Islands together
amounted to about the resource base of the SW, and collectively, they
could muster over 1000 warships in the 50,000T+ range, plus a few more
thousand in the 10,000-50,000T range, plus another bunch in the
1000-10,000T range, plus fighters (a total of over 100,000 fighters in
the Islands).
Besides all that, if you assume only 40-odd major Sword Worlds
warships, then the SW are in the same position the Islands were in when
the game began: any squadron of Tigresses could beat up their Naval
Forces all by itself. Frankly, any single Tigress could beat up the SW
Fleet if it is only 40 major combatants...
> It may be hard to imagine but it's consist with canonical material.
Do yourself a favour, and learn to ignore canonical material when it
is clearly pretty stupid. Regina may have had 10 400T SDBs, but if it
did, ask yourself "Why?"
There is no military use for them (any of Neubayern's Flower class
escorts (of which there were more than a thousand) could take all ten
SDBs at once.
There is no real civilian use for them (other than to let pirates
run amok through the Regina system) - remember that Regina orbits a gas
giant, and has a HUGE jump-limit to patrol - thye couldn't patrol it
adequately with ten of ANYTHING, much less SDBs that are no match for a
well-equipped pirate.
Customs cutters? They'd need more than ten, given that large
jump-limit, unless Regina has civilian traffic amounting to no more than
30-40 ships per day arriving/departing. And if that is all the civilian
traffic Regina has, then Regina's starport must be smaller than the port
of New Orleans...
> It's clear from *5FW* that SDBs depend upon world population (although
> I couldn't find a clear pattern and I played with the values from
> *5FW* and *S3:SM* for quite a while).
There were designer's notes for FFW in one of the Journals...
> Imperial military doctrine doesn't call for SDBs to be a significant
> factor in a major war - that's the role of the Navy. SDBs are more
> for dealing with raiders and pirates.
Au contraire, mon vieux...Impy doctrine (which is frankly idiotic)
assumes that the battle for the gas giant between the enemy fleet and
your SDBs will be the crucial part of the defense of any system. It is
SUPPOSED to prevent the enemy from refueling before your Fleet can reach
the GG where they arrived, thus allowing you to pound them into bloody
paste before they can escape.
Admittedly, this isn't worth a pile of warm spit in terms of Naval
Doctrine. I point out, for those who are interested, that in only ONE
case in my TCS game did a Fleet jump in to a gas giant, rather than
arriving at the 100 diameter limit of the main world. And that one case
came because the attacker wanted the enemy to know he was coming, so as
to cause the enemy to be deceived as to the objective of the attack.
In all other cases, the ships jumped in using drop tanks (and aso
arrived with enough fuel to leave, if they had to), and arrived at the
100 diameter limit, thus allowing the target only an hour or two warning
before the attack began for a response to be formed...
> Yes, this is true, but I'm not sure how this would affect redeployment
> of these forces in the face of incursions. I doubt the Regency
> admiralty would permit these forces to be destroyed needlessly trying
> to defend their home ports. Faced with defeat at the hands of the
> *ihatei* (or other foes) I believe they would withdraw and regroup.
Faced with defeat by Ihatei?!? What a concept!!! I suppose
Regina's ten 400T SDBs might be faced with defeat by Ihatei, if the
Ihatei could get in that far, but I find it hard to believe that any
_important_ Impy force could be defeated by the Ihatei...
Can someone out there design a TL14 ship of no more than 30,000T
that can fight off an attack by an Impy BatRon as long as there are at
least 100 of them present? I admit that using TNE rules, this is much
more possible than it was under either HG or MT, but it is still pretty
unlikely...
---SteveDEMOCRACY? Re 616/7745 djohnson: > ...in Europe representatives are chosen through a representative democracy > that places power in the hands of individuals equally while in a > feudal technocracy those representatives are chosen by shareholders that > place power in the hands of owners of production. (Any spelling errors are mine, not Dave's) Hmm. Perhaps ideally... :-) It might be fairer to note that the 'elected' representatives only get where they are by lying, back-handers, use of the media to portray them as 'nice people', etc. [allegedly]. They rarely think for themselves, preferring to tow the 'party line'. In the case of a certain current European government within a few miles of myself, the strings are, in reality, pulled totally by the owners of production, who ensure the politicians vote as they desire in order that they can maintain their high profits and so that the politicians can become directors when they retire from politics. Perhaps not so different from a feudal technocracy? :-) or should it be :-( ? THE SWORD WORLDS 'DEBATE' A lot of the problem seems to be over someone having TL11 and not having as good starships as a TL12 world, etc. Given the World Builder's Handbook, for TL11, maximum TL for a particular facet (power, ships, domestic, etc.) is 11 + (11/5) = 13. So in theory the world might be rated TL11 but actually still retain (or have built up to) TL12 or TL13 in their starship production. This might well be the case if the world was particularly worried about being able to defend itself from attack. Perhaps the TL12 ship production is military only, so all other ships (traders, etc.) are only TL11. Perhaps the domestic economy (if you play TL as a reflection of economy) has suffered to make up for this input into the military such that the populace only has TL9 or worse facilities. Just some thoughts... WHY DOESN'T EVERYONE HAVE THE BOMB? New Scientist once carried an article describing how to make a nuclear bomb in your own home. It did point out that you'd die of radiation poisoning but that if the exercise was being carried out by a terrorist this might not matter. Given the theory that plutonium is available by cash or manufacture, how does one get it? Obvious answer is to go and TAKE it. That's what terrorists could do. If your own country isn't suitable, pop across to a nearby dissolving multi-state ex iron-curtain country, tip some guards a few credits and walk off with a preprepared warhead. Hell, take the whole missile. :-) To apply this to a wider range of products, even should your own world be TL11 and unable to supply TL12 replacements for your bought-in TL12 thingummy-jigs, there's no reason why you shouldn't buy, steal or smuggle such from other worlds. If it's important enough then I would assume a government would be quite willing to go many jumps and deal with less than scrupulous worlds in order to obtain what they want. You only have to look at today's arms trade. "What's this consignment of pipes for Iraq?" "Oh, just some plumbing for a water refinery." "And these huge pointed bullet-like cylinders." "I think they go along inside the pipes - for cleaning... probably..." alternatively... "So you never did see this memo mentioning this firm selling gun-manufacturing machinery to this country?" "I have so many pieces of paper passing across my desk I can't possibly read every one. Anyway the machinery was marked as for industrial use." "But that's because your own government department tipped them off that if they made any implication the machinery could make weapons they'd be refused an export permit." "Er..." or even... Foreign gentleman: "About this dam you've been so kind to invest in..." Govt trade rep: "Oh yes old chap?" (knowing smile) "Just happen to have a few contracts for your military boys..." "Oh, how jolly nice of you." "Nothing to do with the dam of course..." "Of course not. How silly. Incidentally, do you need any 'investment' anywhere else?" GREEN VIRUS Thanks Steve and Cynthia. Anyone else care to play? Enough for now... Andy Commander Lilly, PITS (Political Intelligence Team, Scout) Nothing I say or do in any way reflects the views of my very kind and generous employers.
Gentlesophonts:
Here's my second try at this post.
Andy Lilly [email removed] writes:
> So in theory the world might be rated TL11 but actually still
> retain (or have built up to) TL12 or TL13 in their starship production.
This is a good point but one might wonder then why Sacnoth has not made
similar efforts to push its space TL to 14.
> To apply this to a wider range of products, even should your own world be
> TL11 and unable to supply TL12 replacements for your bought-in TL12
> thingummy-jigs, there's no reason why you shouldn't buy, steal or smuggle
> such from other worlds.
Maybe, but it's tough to fight a prolonged war this way against an opponent
who can produce his own goods internallly. Essentially though, this is what
I've proposed for Gram - it's been receiving aid from the Zhodani.
Happy Travelling,
David Johnson
Houston, Texas, USA