Re: TML nightly: Msgs 6374-6378 V64#17 (bundle 520)
In reply to #6378 Grav vs. Contragrav by Glenn Myers
Glenn sez ... >Bundle: 520 >Archive-Message-Number: 6378 >From: Glenn Myers [email removed] >Subject: Grav vs. Contragrav >Date: Wed, 24 Nov 93 14:27:09 EST > >Hi All, > >I have a question concerning grav/contragrav vehicles. What has really changed >from CT & MT to TNE. I always thought grav created a force which could be used >for propulsion when it pushed around in a gravity well. The force became less >effective as the gravity became less. In TNE, the contragrav appears to negate >up to 99% of gravitational forces. Does this cause any changes in how vehicles >can move. > >Is any of what I've assumed true? Has there been any change at all? I had the >impression that grav actually imparted some maneuver capability. > This is as far as I know a big change from MT (where grav vehicles flw round on thruster plates or some such -- all they needed were power plants). I think Classic Traveller didn't mention anything about the technical details -- starships had manoeuvre drives which allowed ships to move around in normal space and could have been rockets or rock- slingers or gravitic drives. I find this kind of retcon a big problem -- an awful lot of background and existing flavour and maybe history needs to be modified because of this, although I believe most of this dates from the MT days. I always regarded the ability to direct gravitic forces as one of the reasons why we had small fusion power plants: they used a grav generator running off a "spark plug" to initiate the fusion reaction. This is one of the reasons why I haven't yet done anything with TNE -- there's an awful lot of background to fill in first (particularly since I'm not too keen on the post-Virus background anyway). Another problem is that I got a bunch of blank pages in my copy of TNE -- one of these days I'm going ot sort out replacements for them (in fact, if I post a list of the missing pages, could some kind soul send me some photocopies?). To GDW's credit, this is the first time I've ever seen any production problems with their stuff. - Arthur Green University College Dublin Computing Services Email: [email removed] Tel: [phone removed] Fax: [phone removed]