Sulaiman:
<Better? I apologize for the misspelling. I get annoyed
enough when mine gets misspelled that I shouldn't do unto others>
>From: Steve Higginbotham
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^ Hopefully this is correct :-)
It is. Thanks...
>>How and why? 1090? In my TCS game, there are at least two ships, one
>>TL-10, one TL-12, that are theoretically capable of crossing the Rift.
> Two out of how many? What's their total useful tonnage?
two DESIGNS. Out of perhaps 100. The smaller is a five thousand-tonner,
the larger is a 20,000+ tonner. There are about 50 samples of the two
designs present.
In addition, there are perhaps 300 other ships (five or so designs) that
could cross the rift with a little advance preparation. All these other
300 were MUCH larger.
>I think you missed the whole point of the argument. The problem isn't if
>its possible, the problem is whether its VIABLE. What is the ratio of
>useful cargo to fuel for such vessels? If you are transporting more than
>10 people what is its size?
Assuming that the larger rift-crosser (it isn't actually used for that, but
could do it), and assuming you were in no special hurry, you could carry
16,000T of useful cargo from the one side to the other, going through any
area in the rift with a Jump-8 path, or better. Cut that to 10,000T if you
only have a J-10 route. This would require 25,000T of drop tanks for each
J-8 (or J-10) transit. Do that four times, and you are across the rift.
So that makes a cost of MCr100 for the tanks (plus, of course, the
machinery required to build tanks when you reach a system) to move 16,000T.
Cr6250 per ton moved. Cr 3125 per person in low berth. What's the big deal?
>The other problem is that as my reference to crossing of Reft and the
>original Aslan book reveals that the region was not mapped till recently.
The Aslan have been crossing the rift for about a thousand years. Not my
definition of "recent".