Here's another NEW ERA point that's come to mind:
Exactly what distinguishes a class B starport from a class A?
Previously, the answer was obvious-- class A's could build jumpships
while class B's could only build non-jump ships.
What complicates things is the fuel limitations of HEPlaR ships.
Previously, with thruster plates or some unspecified "maneuver drive",
in-system travel times were in most cases short enough that most
in-system travel could be done with non-jump ships. Sure, you needed
microjumps to get to the outer system quickly, but even there, if
time wasn't critical, multi-week journeys were only for the longest
of trips.
That's not the case now (and this "now" includes all 10,000 years of
star travel in Imperial space). Under BL/FF&S, normal-space in-system
travel times are much, much longer. The most timely way to get
around systems in almost every case will be to use microjumps.
It's not even feasable to send low-priority cargos by mass-driver
sling, because they're too vulnerable to theft: A jump-capable ship
jumps in near the cargos' trajectory somewhere deep in interplanetary
space. Match vectors, take it aboard, and jump away! The odds of
any ship being close enough to intercept in time is vanishingly
small, even provided the sling-route is patrolled at all.
So, what has been traditionally thought of as "in-system" ships
will actually be capable of microjumps (using a jump number of "0"
for building its drive). Ships that are not jump-capable will
at a practical level be limited to planetary interface roles and
subordinate craft to a mother(jump)ship. Under the traditional way
of viewing starports, this means the bulk of ALL insystem craft
have to be made at class A starports.
This _REALLY_ doesn't sit well with me.
Here's a modified starport classification that seems reasonable to me:
A: Capable of building starships with 1+parsec-jump drives.
B: Capable of building ships with microjump-only drives. There
is some (unspecified) engineering hurdle that class A ports are
equipped to deal with but class B's are not. THIS HURDLE IS
_INDEPENDENT_ OF TECH LEVEL. Note that this works well with
class B ports' ability to do the annual maintainence on starships.
C: Given the greatly reduced utility of normal-space-only ships,
I think class C's of sufficient tech level should be able to
build non-jump ships. This also works well with class Cs'
ability to do the annual maintainence on "non-starships".
Like I said, it seems reasonable to me. Your milage may vary.
Opinions?
John H Bogan
now appearing at [email removed]
get your tickets today!