> From: [email removed] (Steve Higginbotham)
> Subject: (3672) "pancakes" and other Striker...
>
> An odd picture, but perfectly true, all the same. I concede the point.
> However you inadvertently made MY point: that it is safer to be at
> altitude than at NOE.
I know, and there is perhaps one way of evading the low hit probabilities
for all weapons, and that is to use missiles with sensor suites as forward
observers that transmit targetting data back to the launching platform.
> BTW, the pncake has one serious flaw: curvature of the planet limits
> the effective side of the pancake to no more than 5 or so Km, unless the
> tanks are operating at altitude. So the "pancake" doesn't actually
> exist except in theoreticians' minds>
The maximum range on which a radar can get a clear line of sight over
flat altitude 0 terrain between two grav-tanks on 1850m altitude is 350km
The reason behind the funny altitude is that I got this figure from the
revised LOS chart for Harpoon:)
> You are showing your track-layer prejudices again. If you can fly, you
> can choose an altitude where your shot falls at the most advantageous
> (to you) angle. Then armour sloping becomes much more problematic, and
> design theory would probably consist of determining optimum slope to
> convince your enemy to move to a position (relative to you) that makes
> HIm more vulnerable. Sounds like fun...
I had an idea for a gravtank looking somewhat like a sharp saucer with
a thickness to diameter ratio of 1:10. From tha altitudes and ranges one get
with the pancake theory this would mean a gain in armour thickness in
90% of the cases due to the (to put it mildly) radical slope.
> Power to weight ratio (though MT loves teh concept) is meaningless. The
> correct concept is "power to MASS ratio". Even if weight is zero, mass
> is still there.
Isn't the purpose of inertial compensators to remove the effects of
accelerations by removing inertia (and thus mass)? I know that I wrote
weight but I wasn't totally awake when I wrote it:)
> I noticed the HUD problem myself last night on the
> Vargr ships in Rebellion Sourcebook. I suspect this has something to do
> with the fact that the various controls DON'T DO ANYTHING other than
> contribute to CP totals.
The reason for the strange number of HUDs is that it is that one HUD per
panel is the most optimum combination to get a high number of CPs. I think
it was Paul Dale that discovered this.
> Something needs to be done (at least
> informally) to regulate the use of controls of various types. No more
> than one HUD per workstation, or whatever.
There were some ideas about putting a max number of HUDs at 1/bridge
crew, 1/2command, 1/2engineers on the TML (or was it in a private email?
I didn't save it, unfortunately)
> For that matter, why can't a
> ship have large numbers of computers, so ships don't need to be limited
> by Computer CP limits?
I've done this once of twice for low-tech defensive ships.
> [email removed]
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