plastic ships first, they're shorter to deal with 8-)
We did an analysis of the hull weights etc. and why you'd want it that
that thick earlier on the list. The conclusions were that level-40 is not
needed for any significant reason..._except_ radiation protection over the
long term for the crew. And there is simply no way around having to shield
the crews; they'll spend all their time in space, and will recieve unhealthy
doses over a few years if you scrimp on thickness. Plastic ships, while
structurally valid (if not as well armoured for combat 8-), don't give very
good radiation shielding at all.
Large Ships...
Funny that it just came up. I've been working with the designs
in Fighting Ships of the Shattered Imperium a lot over the last few days,
and the starship combat rules, and I just decided to set up a computer
program to handle large-scale combat for me. The results are not yet in,
but by friday or so I'll have a few dozen battles under my belt, and the
facilities to easily run more, so we'll see what happens when 1500 fighters
and an Atlantis take on three Battle Riders... 8-)
The program's in Hypercard/hypertalk for mac, so if anyone else
out there is interested, I'll pass it around once it's debugged. It's probably
going to cut some corners in places, but ought to be useful.
- - -george william herbert
[email removed]