>> That's a very good question, which we have been asking ourselves since
>> we got hold of Hard Times. (actually, I have been wondering since MT
>> came out, as MT made it MUCH harder to build a ship which could have a
>> real chance of being an effective pirate)
>
>How so? It looks about the same to me...at least if you consider High
>Guard as part of your pre-MT framework.
Actually, the primary requirement for an effective PIRATE is crew space,
and station-keeping ability. Not weaponry, acceleration, or much of
anything else. In High Guard, power plant fuel use was low enough that you
had plenty of room for extra men (though the bunk helped in that regard),
and it was relatively easy to design a ship that could stay on station for
several months.
>Hmmmm....I don't know about that for sure, Steve. While I didn't go into
>it extensively at the time, some back of the envelope calculations had me
>convinced that bulk freight transport by grav vehicle probably becomes
>economical with the increased fusion plant output at TL13. Below that
>level, you would see increasing amounts of people and high value/low
>weight cargoes moving by grav vehicle from TL9 through TL12. Bulk cargo,
>though, would be easier/cheaper to move in wheeled vehicles on roads
>between population and distribution centers. Think of it as a railroad
>analogy. There will also be other special purpose applications for
>wheeled and tracked vehicles even at higher TLs, so the technology won't
>be completely forgotten.
UNlikely. Have you checked out the price of a mile of highway? How about
a million miles of it?
BTW, RAILROADS (at least the maglev kind) I can believe in. I don't really
expect them, but I could accept them. For hauling large cargoes about on a
world, expect to see large, low performance spacecraft. They can deliver
the goods so quickly that the required fleet would be quite small, and if
they used enough grav to get 1.25 times local surface G, most would be less
than 1G (about 0.75 actually). They can still make a sub-orbital hop, and
still cost less than the million or so miles of roads they replace.
Especially if you use our additions to the pricing schemes for LPHG and
LPLG.
I am sure that you can build a wheeled vehicle for less than any grav
vehicle (if you try hard), but it is unlikely to cost less if you add the
cost of the highway system in.
BTW, at the present price of highways (a few million per mile), a world
could import grav cars for everyone, rather than build a highway system as
large as ours. And ours is none too large, as rush hour traffic will
attest.
Later...
- -- Via DLG Pro v0.985b
[email removed]
I have learned to use the word "impossible" with the greatest caution.
--W. von Braun