Re: (1800) FTL impossibilities, TDR stuff

Robert P Poole said basically that FTL travel is impossible.  I will agree,
IF we add the proviso:  "With Our Current Understanding Of Physics!"

So many times in history, someone has said "not possible, the universe
doesn't allow it", it has turned out later that it WAS possible, only
our knowledge was incomplete, or the evidence misunderstood, to give
the impression that the desired ability was impossible.

I'll even admit (reluctantly :-) ) that the percentage chance of FTL
working is MUCH less than 1%, but until we know everything, we cannot
eliminate that last little bit of uncertanty.

Still, Robert has a valid point:

	DON'T GET BOGGED DOWN TRYING TO MAKE EVERYTHING "REAL".

It is sufficient if it is "close", or even as long as it is internally
consistent and not too obviously externally bogus.

Example, FTL is necessary to reduce travel times to something that can be
used within the framework of an RPG game taking place on multiple planets
around different stars.  Yes, it mucks up with our current understanding
of physics, but it is needed, so give it a mild handwave and continue on.

However, a "reactionless" drive is probably NOT necessary.  Having
only "reaction" drives puts a whole series of other problems into
fairly well understood fields.  Allowing higher efficiencies than
are now possible, through some plausible means (such as controlled
fusion), can reduce interplanetary travel times to something more
tolerable.  On the other hand, long trips leave lots of time for
fun and games like "self-improvment" (Gee! I didn't know this ship
had a shooting range!), and "capture-the-bridge" (I don't understand
*why* the Captain is soooo upset!).

> ...been watching all this talk about Black Globes and reactionless
> thrusters, and I just have to laugh. ...

Robert?  You seem to fall into the same category of people who say
"It's Just A Show!  Get A Life!"  To which I say:

	So What!  WE LIKE TRYING TO FIGURE IT OUT!

It doesn't matter if we KNOW that it isn't going to work in real life,
it's enough if we can come up with something that doesn't bend too many
rules and is internally consistent!  The question is, which rules are
we going to bend and by how much!  THAT's what we're arguing about! :-)

Which is *precisely* what the TDR development team is going to have to
do.  Decide which rules to bend and by how much.  Yes, the trade rules
and such are desparately in need of fixing, but how can you fix them when
you don't know how long it takes to get from here to there, or how much
it's going to cost you to transport that cargo over that distance?

Without having both maneuver and FTL drive pinned down, you can't figure
what is "reasonable" for cargo/costs/sizes/values/etc...  Sure, you can
come up with some pretty good formulas, but you need some constants to
plug into the formulas so that the number of useless cargos generated are
not so many that you roll dozens of times before you get one viable cargo
that doesn't even fill your cargo space!  Yet the cargos generated should
allow for the chance that bad choices will lead to financial problems.

I suppose that the first thing to do is to decide what features depend
on which others, praying that there aren't too many circular dependencies.

Here, I'll start the chart:

	Maneuver Drive ____
		^          \
		|           > Ship Design ---> Cargo Viability
	FTL Drive _________/

Before you can develop good formulas for generating cargo, you have to know
how much it costs to transport the goods and how long it takes to get there.
(Some cargos are perishable.)  Before you can know that, you have to have your
ship design methods layed out, because without that, you've no idea what your
average ship capacities are.  Before that, you have to have some idea how your
Maneuver and FTL Drives work, because they will affect what you can get away
with in Ship Design.  Before that, you have to decide just how your FTL drive
is going to work.  Like, are you required to move away from gravity wells for
it to work efficiently?  How far?  This will affect what your maneuver drive
must be capable of for your FTL drive to work.  If you're not required to move
away from a gravity well, then do you have to be outside atmosphere?  If not,
then why bother with a maneuver drive anyway?

Get the idea?  Yes, the design process is probably going to be somewhat
iterative, but if you get the basics nailed down carefully enough, the
rest shouldn't be too bad.

	    ABOVE ALL, MAINTAIN INTERNAL CONSISTENCY!

I don't think there's anything that ticks an RPGer off more, than a
game which isn't internally consistent.  Such inconsistency normally
shows up in the rules, making it hard to play.

				    Good Luck!
- - --
Preferred: [email removed]			Edwin Wiles, NetExpress Inc., Vienna, VA
Alternate: ...!grebyn!netex!elw