Re: KE weapons: late addition
In reply to #2794 KE weapons: late addition by John Steven Higginbotham
[email removed] (John Steven Higginbotham) writes: > > 1) Why do so many reasonably educated people always assume that our present > level of knowledge in physics is true and correct in every way? We don't, otherwise we'd have to forget anti-gravity and jump drives. (Note the implied arrogance in the "we" there! :-) > Point being, you are all treating Conservation of Energy as Gospel. Because if someone once finds a way of violating it, they'll start producing energy for free and upset the whole game universe. Besides, it makes sense. > According to > Hawking's speculations about naked singularities, conservation of energy > does not apply in their vicinity ... Very well, try putting a naked singularity into your ship and see how far you get! :-) > And why can't the excess energy needed to make your numbers come out right > come from Superspace, or be extracted from the Universal gravitational field, > or something equally unlikely. Because it's _too_ unlikely! > Remember that MT is supposed to be 'space opera', not hard scifi. If you want > hard scifi, use 2300AD, or create your own universe. Stop trying to bludgeon > MT to make it fit. Some of us were raised on Classic Traveller, which was supposed to be hard s.f. (Not "scifi", or you'll get flamed by some people who find that term a bit objectionable! :-) We'd rather like to play MT the same way. Of course, if you don't want to, you can use the rules as they are, and I for one won't object. Me, if I want space opera, I play Star Wars. > Let's try a new thread. We have been trying to determine the effect that > densitometers have on a high TL battlefield. According to MT, artificial grav > stands out like a sore thumb on a densitometer. So what allows anyone to use > grav vehicles, when they can be detected and eliminated by a > densitometer/meson gun combo on the other side of the planet? Well, not quite. To detect the vehicle from the other side of a planet, you need a high penetration densitometer to be able to see through the planet; and that only becomes practical at around TL18, when your densitometer can penetrate 2500km. Even using one from the other side of a hill might not work at TL15 (penetration = 1km). On the other hand, giving your TL15 trooper a handheld densitometer, sending him to the top of the hill, and using him as a forward observer for artillery might work, as might using a densitometer from a great height. > Any design philosophies > for vehicles and military forces that take neutrino detectors/densitometers > into account? Use WW1 cloth-covered biplanes? :-) - -- "Keyboard? How quaint!" - M. Scott Adrian Hurt | JANET: [email removed] UUCP: ..!ukc!cs.hw.ac.uk!adrian | ARPA: [email removed]