OK. Several people have commented on high-G craft. Let's make some
assumptions:
1) 6G is the upper limit that the inertial compensators can cope with.
1A) I personally think that it's closer to 7G, since on ships with the deck
perpendicular to the plane of travel, 6G of compensation is in effect,
along with 1G of artificial Gravity. (make sense?)
2) Personnel equiped with G suits and suitably trained can _probably_ withstand
9Gs on top of that for a _critical_ maneuver.
3) I'm pretty sure that G suits compensate well in the 4G range for the length
of a typical TL-8 dogfight.
3A) I would imagine that _most_ of a 30 minute turn is spent in "non-combat"
with perhaps 10% in actual combat/evaisive maneuvers. (reasonable?)
4) Most non-miltary craft won't want to dedicate the maintenance that's
required to keep things from flying all over the place in a
non-G-compensated environment.
Given the above, it seams reasonable that it should be possible to build/fly
a 10G military (or paramilatary) craft. It would accelerate at 6G for purposes
of in-system movement (maybe 7, given assumption 1A, maybe 8, if the pilot's
willing to put up with 2G for a while); but (depending on its agility) have
substantial DMs on the chance to hit it in combat. (Is agility retained in
TNE?)
I chose 10G as pushing the limits of a pilot's endurance during a prolonged
encounter. Shorter-order work could probably push 14 or 15G. The 10G craft
could probably push 19G in a dense atmosphere if it was fitted with control
surfaces, but who'd want to do that? %)
If one assumes that 4X overdrive is used regularly, then the DMs become much
less substantial (but so does the cost.) I'd still do it, just for that extra
edge...
Is 6G the maximum that the compensators can handle? (Loren?)
Tossing assumption 1 opens a great big can-o-worms. :)
On the subject of games: Did anybody ever play grav-ball? It was published
about 8-10 years ago. It even came with its own 15mm lead figures mounted on
little stands. As I remember, it was sort of like full-contact soccer (except
that you could use your hands.) The ball was a 10KG steel bearing. Different
positions had differing amounts of armor (Goalie had the most :) All played
in a zero-G arena. Fun stuff. Easy to re-do for Trav. Multi-racial, even.
On coffee: It's notoriously fickle regarding where it will grow, and how it
tastes depends a great deal on the conditions that it was grown in. I can see
the coffee houses of the (Post)Imperium now, 3100 flavors at your beck-and-call
(for a price, of course...) Or you can drink the local swill for 10Cr.
- --
[email removed] (SPG6)