Re: Gravitics, aerodynamics etc.

[This came to [email removed], looks like it was meant
for [email removed].  Watch those automatic reply headers!
- -- James]

I have dealt with this problem in my game (VERY modified version) by having
four kinds of potentially aerodynamic vehicles.  The first is a lifting body
(i.e. brick-with-wings space shuttle design).  The second is a needle (i.e.
1950's rocket w. fins, or something similar).  The third is a stealthed hull
(kind of like a lifting body in shape).  The fourth is a lander (closer to
the LEM than anything else, although another good example is the big moon
lander in 2001).  I don't believe in gravity control, etc., so all of these
have to deal with with standard spacecraft dealing with gravity problems.
The only one that is a tail-lander is the lander model; the others have to
deal with the "coffee mugs fall off the shelves problem."  (Actually, my
description of the problem is a little more hideous--all the toilets turn
90 degrees; one hopes that landing procedures includes turning off the
plumbing for a while, or at least moving modular units into new non-spill
positions.)

Of course, since about 95% of the population in my game world (200 billion
to 500 billion per average solar system, and sometimes a lot more) lives in
space habitats, and most inhabited planets have their own elaborate shuttle
systems (very useful to keeping out smugglers, terrorists, etc.) this is
not a common problem for players.  (When it is, they velcro the coffee mugs
to the wall and turn off the plumbing for a few hours.)  Usually, your
spacecraft docks at a habitat's spaceport or sits a few hundred kilometers
away if the docking berths are all taken and a space gig comes out to your
ship and shuttles you into the habitats.

NEW TOPIC.  How many people run adventures in large habitats (my typical
large habitat is a rotating cylinder affair 15 km. at the base and 60 km.
from end to end; at each end is an "endwall complex" of enclosed levels
for industries, apartments, etc.--imagine about 700 shopping malls stacked
on top of one another and you'll have a rough idea; the endwall levels
are about 100 m. wide so you get a huge amount of internal space from them--
plus a "dayside," the landscaped interior of the cylinder.  The whole
thing supports about one million people; with the endwall complexes included
the internal surface area is about 4800 square km., of which roughly three
quarters (or two thirds of 3600 square km. if you use narrower endwall levels)
is "indoor" or endwall complex, and the remainder "outdoor" or dayside,
the latter being used for farms, parks, wilderness preserves, etc.)?
Personally, I am satisfied with a set-up that I find plausible, and I have
found that while microworlds have some limitations (anyone who specialized
in Field Artillery is going to fill a bit left out since using howitzers
inside a habitat is generally considered a bad idea), a million-person
setting can give you some remarkably complex adventure scenarios, and is
a little easier to map out than a billion-person world.  When you finish
one adventure in one habitat, of course, you can always move on to another.
(I assume that in many cases you will get a few hundred to several thousand
habitats clustered around a big asteroid or a large moon--the main source
of raw materials--and they will form a general political alliance.  The
result is that my universe is one where most people live in the galactic
version of an archipeligo.)  Any comments, questions, suggestions?


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