There's just too much good stuff in yesterday's mail to pass up. Think
I comment on just about everyone's message at least once. :=)
First: James--when does the tml address change officially? And what to?
(Or do you not yet know?)
Second, Dale Poole asks for our comments on some products.
:[supplement 9 -- fighting ships]
: According to the introduction, most of the ships in this book
: were designed using Book 5 'High Guard'. I have never seen
: High Guard, and so, the High Guard stats are meaningless to me.
:
: Is this book still useful for someone struggling to learn
: Classic Trav?
High Guard is one of the better Traveller products. The ships it
produces are at least halfway consistent. Takes a little while to
figure out their system, though.
:Double Adventure 6: Night of Conquest/Divine Intervention
: Has anyone played either of these? What are they like?
: Challenging, easy, suitable or not for beginners?
You can handle Divine Intervention. It's pretty easy (if it's the one
I'm thinking of) and has few major characters. Just modify the premise
and set up a little to fit your campaign.
Third: A WHOLE BUNCH of terminal velocity stuff was discovered by the
victimizer, exegisis....
[Did he or did he not go supersonic.]
Well he certainly exceed the speed of sound on Mars. :=)
He did go bloody fast. In fact, (the urban legend style of history
that I remember says) he probably did not want to deply the drogue,
but realized he was starting to tumble, and that it would quickly
kill him if he didn't stop it.
Makes sense to me. The human body is not terribly stable in air,
and at around .7M and up we should start to see the results of
compression of the airflow around parts of the body. That is, for
instance the shoulder will produce more lift than the foot, for a
while, etc.
Me, Id' hate to experience the transonic region, with sock wave,
compressed flow, turbulence, and induced flutter, without the aid
of some titanium betweem me and the air. :=)
[Whither 300 kph (200 mph)?]
I suspect its a power/fuel tradeoff.
In TL8 light aircraft, we can get about 200kph cruise on about 100HP
engine. To get 300 kph, the smallest engines you'll find doing it
are in the 230HP to 250HP range. Typical (TL7, granted) designs run
up into the 400HP range to get this kind of speed. Drink a lot of
gasoline, too. I suspect it has to do with where the knee of the
curve is for resistince in air that is about the same density as
earth's.
Oh -- drag coefficient for a TL8 airfram is typically in the area of
0.02 or so. A raw human body is in the area of 0.4. Nasty stuff for
both speeds we're discussing.
Third: Orbital Lasers and Executive Action
Scott says:
:Well, when you have a camera in orbit capable of resolving 10cm
:objects on the surface, it's easy enough to correct fire.
Getting this resolution would be a nighmare, Scott, if you're actually
in orbit. Theoretical resolution limits at your chosen wavelength.
You'd have to set up a synthetic aperture arrangement with three
(well two, but three would be better) or more ships. What DOD
stellites do is dip into the atmosphere close to the target, get
higher later. I *think* it's on the order of 1/2pi*w where w is
wavelength.
As for atmospheric scattering, see "Rayleigh Criterion". It's on
the order of 1/w^4, where w is wavelength. X-rays won't cut it.
microwave or infrared is the best way to go.
Also, check into adaptive and active optics. Dynamically playing
with the shapes of mirrors to counteract atmopheric problems.
Gotta run.
- --
Richard Johnson [email removed]
Qui custodii ipsos custodes?