Traveller-digest       Monday, June 16 1997       Volume 1997 : Number 1429



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Starship hulls
re: Shipyard size (kinda long)
Re: Alien Races (was Pocket Empires)
Re: T4.1 Char gen system
RE: T4.1 Char gen system
RE: Shipyard size (kinda long)
Re: T4.1 Char gen system
Pocket Empires question
Re: Shipyard size (kinda long)
Re: RPSCS
Re: Jump drives
FS repair
Re: Minor Races (let's do a book)
Re: T4.1 Char gen system
Re: Scenario: Generation-Ship
Re: Traveller-digest V1997 #1421
Re: Minor Races (let's do a book)
Re: Fire in Zero-G (Re: Scenario: Generation-Ship)
Re: Shipyard Size
Re: Quick Physics Question

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sun, 15 Jun 1997 19:09:00 -0400 (EDT)
From: GypsyComet@aol.com
Subject: Re: Starship hulls

for those of you using proportional fonts to read mail, convert this message
to a monospace for better understanding...

Marc Miller (CardSharks@aol.com) posted:

>Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 17:42:13 -0400 (EDT)

>From: CardSharks@aol.com

>Subject: Starship Hulls

>

>		STANDARD HULLS

>Tons  Config.   L  W  H  +W  +H  Gs  Std  M3  M2  Mw  MCr Armor  Mat Str?
>10    Cylinder 13  4  4   8   3   1   5   76 146   4  1   12     CL   AF
>10    Cylinder 13  4  4   -   -   2   5   65 113   2  0.9 15     SD   SL



 And so on...

 While I like what this table represents, some of the numbers trouble me.
The above two examples are the first two lines of the table. According to
the key at the bottom of the table, the 'Std' column is the remaining
volume in DTons after the 'Hull' is built.  Do these little craft hulls
really take up half of their own available volume?
  These numbers make a little more sense if you assume (or are told) that
the drives are already in place in these hulls. They are "Standard" after
all, so buying a hull with Maneuver drives already installed to one of a few
market-preset standards is actually a cool and understandable idea.  But the
table didn't say so...
  Carrying this idea into the table further, we find the following:


>Tons  Config.  L  W  H  +W  +H  Gs  Std     M3    M2   Mw  MCr  Armor Mat Str?
>4000  Box    59 31 31   -   -  3 1,562 21,864 6,668 1483 163.5   18  HS  SL
>4000  Sphere  48 48 48   -   -  2   471  6,600 5,556 1493 152     15  CI  SL


 What we see here are two hulls that are the same displacement, but rated
for different thrusts and are different shapes.  One of these hulls is
giving up 60%+ of its volume to _something_, while the other is giving up
nearly 90%! The hull with more available space is also the hull rated for
the higher thrusts and has more armor!

 Clearly something is wrong with the content and/or labeling of this table.
If I had access to the core rules and assumptions that went into this table
I would offer to fix it, but it is increasingly plain to me that FF&S-TNE
is no longer even close...


 The Once and Future (but not current) Starship Architect
Jim Kundert

 PS: someone posted within the last couple days about this same table. I
forget who now, but their post led to this one...

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 15 Jun 1997 16:41:03 -0700 (MST)
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@Pharmacy.Arizona.EDU>
Subject: re: Shipyard size (kinda long)

I'm curious, where did you derive the hangar sizes or orbital shack sizes
for your shipyard facilities? This is the kind of information I was really
aiming for.

Someone else mentioned the Shuttle facility or Boeing's 747 assembly
line..how big are these? I know that the the shuttle construction building
was the largest enclosed space in the world some time ago, but exactly how
big is it?

Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 16 Jun 1997 09:46:31 +1000
From: Darryl Adams <dadams@tig.com.au>
Subject: Re: Alien Races (was Pocket Empires)

At 16:28 15/06/97 +0930, you wrote:
>Minor alien races are "minor" that is why they shouldn't be used much.
>They exist and should be used for a bit more colour but if they appear
>everywhere you go then they will no longer be minor. I would used minor

Actually, Minor Races not having Jump Tech would not limit their
usefullness. Generation ships, Sleepers, Gene Banks with Robotics or even
(more plausable, given that the Romans did it, and Gibson's Rise and Fall
of the Roman Empire is an inspiration of the Third Impirium), forced
repatriation.
>races in one of two ways:
>
>1) They are a low tech civilisation and thus being confined to one planet.

Given the Pax Imperium of the 1st Imperium, a more logical explanation is
that they had access to Jump tech, but did not develope it themselves. That
is the _only_ way the Imperium differs from minor and major. There is
nothing stooping a minor race having a mutli system empire, except they
aere dependant of external sources for Jump and other Tech.

Minor is a Vilani banner, a tool to help to reinforce the superioroity of the
First Imperium, and by delfault , the ROM and 3I.

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 15 Jun 1997 17:23:25 -0700
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Re: T4.1 Char gen system

At 10:41 AM 6/15/97 -0400, Marc spake unto us:

>Edu and degrees are "decoupled." There are many people who have the knowledge
>equivalent of a university degree or a masters or something, but because they
>don't have degrees, they cannot work in academia, or get admitted to grad
>school.

Nice touch!  

>I know some people with that sort of knowledge but who cannot persevere in an
>academic environment and so don't have the degree to reflect it.

that's me all over.. at a con last year I was on a panel on special
operations and their evolution, and afterwards one of the other
participants asked me if I was working on my PhD yet, since he'd love to
have me as a student!  The look on his face when I explained that I was, in
fact, a high-school dropout with a passion for self-learning...

BTW: One of the reasons I blew off HS was these little black books.... :)

- --
+------------------------------------------------+
|   Douglas E. Berry         dberry@hooked.net   |
| Gearhead & Planetologist, Traveller since 1977 |
|         http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/         |
|************************************************|
|    "Traveller assumes a remote centralized     |
|   government (referred to in this volume as    |
|    the Imperium)...                            |
|       -Introduction, Book 4: Mercenary (1978)  |
+------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 16 Jun 1997 13:28:29 +1200
From: Brody  Dunn <brody@intersol.co.nz>
Subject: RE: T4.1 Char gen system

> BTW: One of the reasons I blew off HS was these little black books....
:)

Got it in One - Small black books - Who'da thought they'd be so
dangerous? :)

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 16 Jun 1997 13:27:04 +1200
From: Brody  Dunn <brody@intersol.co.nz>
Subject: RE: Shipyard size (kinda long)

On Monday, June 16, 1997 11:41 AM, Bruce Johnson
[SMTP:johnson@Pharmacy.Arizona.EDU] wrote:
> I'm curious, where did you derive the hangar sizes or orbital shack
sizes
> for your shipyard facilities? This is the kind of information I was
really
> aiming for.

I always pictured starships being constructed much like ships of today
get built.  A large space with a frame work built up as the ship is
built.  When it is closed in the delicate stuff gets installed.  The
ship Hull is it's own enclosure.

This is of course in opposition to the everything has to be covered
crowd.

I would probably say something like the following

Take the ships maximum dimensions as a start.  Add 25% (or 5 meters -
whichever is higher) and multiply the Length and Width to give area
required.  Multiply by height to get volume (each m3 costs 100Cr for
building costs if a custom building is required) or you need that much
floor space in any other building.

25% or 5 meters is a guess based on other construction projects I seen
(been involved in).  Many large buildings go up in essentially their own
footprint and a bit of the roading nearby for trucks to use.

I see ship construction as being highly machinery orientated with small
work crews manipulating large machines to cut, weld and place the major
hull surfaces.  Various patches and portals being left open for access.
Large self contained vehicles simply drive in suck out any contruction
left overs and create required contaminant free zones as needed (jump
Drives - Computers, controls etc....).  In fact the layout of the ship
is probably influenced by the need to build it a certain way.

> 
> Someone else mentioned the Shuttle facility or Boeing's 747 assembly
> line..how big are these? I know that the the shuttle construction
building
> was the largest enclosed space in the world some time ago, but exactly
how
> big is it?

It's huge. according to this link
http://www.ksc.nasa.gov/facilities/vab.html it is 3.25 hectares(8
acres).  160m high by 218m long by 158m wide.  Woohoo!

As an aside (3,664,883m3 =  261777 dT) those million tonners are pretty
big!!!

The Everett Plant at http://www.boeing.com/quick.facts.html is in total
(probably not in one volume) 39.86 hectares (~98 acres) and hold 13.37
Million cubic metres (wow!)  about 1 million dT.  [That makes me go all
shivery]

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 15 Jun 1997 19:49:09 -0600 (MDT)
From: "P. ENGEBOS" <pengebos@NMSU.Edu>
Subject: Re: T4.1 Char gen system

On Sun, 15 Jun 1997, Hans Rancke-Madsen wrote:

> Marc Miller writes: 
> >Pursuing an ED8 certificate increases your Edu to 8.
> >Going to an Academy will increase it to 9.
> >Going to Univeristy gets you an A.
> >Grad School gets you a B.
> >Honors gets you+1 Edu.
> 
> Does that mean that a character who rolls a B on EDU is allowed to assume
> that he has already gone through Grad School? Or that he will be able to 
> breeze through it? There should be some interpretation of just what a
> 'natural' EDU of B and C really means.

If the player has a natural stat that high, I always make them account for
it in a character history. Then I can use their explanation against them
durring play :)

Peter Engebos				<pengebos@nmsu.edu>
T'Sarith, Lord deGaalth			<tsarith@io.com>
		http://web.nmsu.edu/~pengebos/

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 16 Jun 1997 15:43:12 +1200
From: Brody  Dunn <brody@intersol.co.nz>
Subject: Pocket Empires question

If I have a negative discretionary tax then does that increase my
popularity ( Thinking about tax breaks for invaded worlds etc...)

Brody Dunn

brody@intersol.co.nz

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 16 Jun 1997 00:30:47 -0500
From: "The Druid" <tntsrv@10mb.com>
Subject: Re: Shipyard size (kinda long)

 
>I'm curious, where did you derive the hangar sizes or orbital shack sizes
>for your shipyard facilities? This is the kind of information I was really
>aiming for.

>Someone else mentioned the Shuttle facility or Boeing's 747 assembly
>line..how big are these? I know that the the shuttle construction building
>was the largest enclosed space in the world some time ago, but exactly how
>big is it?


A real wide variety of sources.
The main source is my experience with Aircraft construction; I spent some
time helping to build F/A-18's.
But I did factor in some Traveller stuff from TCS & COAC; I will try and
dig up all my notes and give you the details within a day or so.
The Orbital component, BTW, was pure extrapolation from Traveller
resources.

Rich Travis
http://www.vrhome.com/traveller

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 15 Jun 97 23:07:21 
From: jamesd@loki.spirit.com.au (James Dempsey)
Subject: Re: RPSCS

On Jun 2, Richard Hough wrote:

> Unfortunately, the sensor rules give no indication of how many sensor rolls
> are allowed. One per ship? One per sensor? One per sensor technician?

  The way I read it, you can make as many sensor attempts as you like, but it
gets harder the more you try. This makes use of the Mulitple Actions rules on
T4 p58.

> The sensor packages offered only provide enough power for one active sensor
> so this may be moot for the current rules, but what about custom ships or
> special rulings? Since the RPSCS actually makes sensors useful in combat it
> would be advantageous to install redundant sensors and there should be
> rules to handle them.

  Some of the SSDS electronics include redundant systems. I like the idea
too.

> One ruling I follow which heightens drama considerability is hiding enemy
> ship characteristics. In combat I only describe features of the enemy ships
> that sensors will reveal, like position, energy output, and weapon
> signatures. This ruling makes players more cautious; they don't just fire
> every missile on board as soon as they get a sensor lock.
>
  Yep, I use that one also - mind you, I have only run a couple of sessions.
It makes it a lot more tense.

> The ship damage rules are also very well done, especially the hit
> description and crew effects. However, what should I do if a nonexistent or
> destroyed component gets hit? I have been rolling again for nonexistent
> components and ignoring hits on destroyed components; the theory being that
> if there is nothing there to get hit the damage hits another component, but
> an inoperative component can still get hit again.

  Sounds fair to me.

> I don't understand how many attacks each weapon gets. Is the "Rate of Fire"
> the number of attacks per turn or just some abstract number? If a ROF 100
> laser really gets 100 attacks each turn, every ship in the fleet is going
> to be destroyed before the first turn is up! WOULD SOMEBODY
> PLEASE TELL ME HOW TO HANDLE RATE OF FIRE IN TRAVELLER!? So far I have been
> ignoring ROF entirely.
>
  Well, ROF is handled at the design stage. For a ROF 100, you add +1 to the
damage at each range band, but you can't do more than double the damage at
any band. See my SSDS web page for the full table. The URL is
http://www.spirit.com.au/~jamesd/Trav/SSDS/Errata.html

  BTW: This can make a great modification for lasers - feed it more power, up
the ROF, and you do more damage. I am intending to let my PCs do this
dynamically - drop life support then, we need to make this hit count - type
of thing.

> Lest I give too negative an impression, the RPSCS is the best space combat
> game I have ever played, beating even Mayday. The sensor rules are great.
> It can be integrated into a regular campaign or played as a separate game.
> It is vastly superior, even in its 'prerelease' form, to the Basic Ship
> Combat System in the T4 rulebook. IG should seriously consider using if for
> T4 Deluxe.
>
  Have to agree - it really adds some atmosphere to the game. Mind you it and
Brilliant Lances are the only ones I have used. BL was too complex to easily
use as part of a game, but fun as a standalone thing.

Bye,

James Dempsey
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 email: jamesd@spirit.com.au             | Neptune, Titan, stars can frighten!
 WWW:   http://www.spirit.com.au/~jamesd |   Astronomy Domine - Pink Floyd

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 16 Jun 1997 09:29:27 +0100
From: Timothy.Collinson@solent.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Jump drives

Oedipus writes:

<snip jump drive discussion>
>The only solution that I have with that is based upon a theory that I
>read in "the Physics of Star Trek" (I forget the name of the author). >I
also heard this theory on "Future Fantastic". The theory was based >on the
possibility that space is curved. If space is curved then you >could take a
short cut form one point in space to another. The short >cut would take the
form of a wormhole. It is like folding a peice of >paper over and the
poking a whole through the sheets. A trip that >would take a while when
travelling along the paper takes only a short >time by going through the
hole.

If any one needs to know:
The Physics of Star Trek
By Lawrence M. Krauss
     Basic Books 1995 (US)
     HarperCollins 1996 (UK)
     ISBN 0 00 225485 9
(It happens to be sitting on my desk as the library's just bought a copy).

Useful book (particularly for Traveller referee's!) discussing all manner
of SF science, possible, improbable and impossible.  Don't miss it just
because the 'Star Trek' title puts you off.

tc
timothy.collinson@solent.ac.uk

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 16 Jun 1997 10:25:04 +0200
From: Carlos Alos-Ferrer <alos@merlin.fae.ua.es>
Subject: FS repair

>From: CardSharks@aol.com
>Alos sent me his revision of Massilia as an attached file. I have accepted
>his scholarly comments and incorporated them into the "official" file.

        I hope other people takes this gesture as a demonstration of
reasonability and the revision process continues.

>I'll
>take any reasonable suggestion and consider it. I suggest you send thos
>suggestions to FarFuture@aol.com so I don't miss them.

        Well, I am most honored... now I am really starting to use the
revised data for my home universe ;-). At the moment, I am figuring out the
Imperial frontier at year 20 and putting some flesh into a handful of Pocket
Empires (the Geonee Confederation and the Rebin Empire being the most
prominent, but without forgetting the Trentan Federation cited in EA).
        Thanks for the attention, Marc.

>They won't go into M0 hardback. They will be incorporated into the official
>files. My intention is to post that as a text file somewhere (to make it
>easier to search for your homeworld).

        I suppose there are practical considerations preventing the revision
from going into the M0 hardback. But, one thought. Despite the fact that
around a hundred of lines had minor or not-so-minor changes in my revised
data, all the changes will easily fit in a single page. So, probably, all
the revision to FS would fit in 8/9 pages. This means a 4/5 errata sheet,
more or less the size of the old MT errata. Why don't include these errata
sheet with the hardback and future sales of the FS stock?

        Carlos Alos-Ferrer
        Massilia sector revisionist ;-)

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 16 Jun 1997 12:07:34 MET
From: "Volker A. Greimann" <GREI5001@uni-trier.de>
Subject: Re: Minor Races (let's do a book)

- -> Incidentally, the next version of "Galactic" is almost finished.
- -> Will be making it available, hopefully within the next few days.
Oh, goody! What's new and changed?

Ad Astra,
V.A.G.       
- ------  Volker A. Greimann, also known as: Grei5001@uni-trier.de  ----
- -- Am Weidengraben 86,C6 - 54296 Trier - Germany - T+F: +49651148846 -
- ------- check out: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Vault/4061 --------
- ---- Student of Law, Gamer, Illuminatus Primus, Slayer of Windows95 --

- -----  "Don't hold me up: I am just barely ahead of insanity!!!" -----

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 16 Jun 1997 03:10:35 -0700 (PDT)
From: "John R. Snead" <jsnead@netcom.com>
Subject: Re: T4.1 Char gen system

I haven't looked over the system in detail, but have a few comments. 

1) What happend to Scouts mustering out with Scout ships?  This is an
essential and long-established part of the game, please replace it.
 
2) In general the mustering out tables have been made more generic, I 
specifically don't like the 10 High Passage tickets for all porfessions.  
This basically amounts to nothing more than 80,000 fre credits.  Include 
Weapon, Scout ships and similar profession specific things instead.

3) Don't Noble get additional skills for promotions and commisions
(ie for Knighthood and Elevation).

4) The basic ide seems to be that character with ranks receive 
1 skill/year + 1 for Commison and +1/promotion.  Character w/o ranks
receive 1 skill/year + 1 skill/term.  I like this idea a lot.

However Schoars are cheated out of this by only receiving 1 skill/year +
one skill for raising their Edu to B or C.  Why not simply give them
+ 1/term.  Otherwise, in 4 terms they have 18 skills, rather than the
20 any other non-ranked profession would have.

5) The Commision and Promotion numbers seem *far* to easy.

6) Pleae kill the birthday generation table, it serve no purpose and takes 
up a whole lot of space.

Advantages:

I love the new Edu & school rules

I like the new rules for homeworld skills

Question:

Btw, T4.0 has both Homeworld and Background skills, have Background skills
been eliminated?

More Advantages:

I like the injury and recover tables, and the cold sleep weeks table.  

Final Thoughts:

Basically, I love this new system and think it vastly superior to any 
other char-gen system I've seen for Traveller, but it does have a few 
problems.


- -John Snead jsnead@netcom.com

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 15 Jun 1997 20:52:49 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Scenario: Generation-Ship

In mail you write:

> -> >Hi folks,
> -> >yesterday during a perticularly boring lecture, i hit upon a new idea 
> -> >for a scenario: Travel onboard a GenerationVessel, a whole new take 
> -> >on the "limited space" campaigns. 
> -> 
> -> A few of us have played with "Metamorphosis Traveller" with credit due to
> -> Jim Ward and his "Metamorphosis Alpha"...  Not only limited space - 
> limited
> -> awareness of its limitedness!
> Never heard of MA, what is it?

MA is a precursor of Gamma World. It's D&D on a lost generation ship. 

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 15 Jun 1997 21:24:47 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Traveller-digest V1997 #1421

In mail you write:

>> Well.. I remember reading a book years ago which stated that astronauts
>> had tried to burn matches on a space station (can't remember whether it
>> was Skylab or russians ). The smoke from the fire just stayed around the
>> fire and eventually (quite soon, actually) extinguished it. 

> Iff this was true, the fire in Mir would extinguish itself. Alas, it
> needed humans to interfere...

Depends on circumstances. For example, a fire involving an oxygen line
(or a line carrying some combustible gas) would keep burning because
the pressure in the line provides the "breeze". 

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 15 Jun 1997 22:14:26 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Minor Races (let's do a book)

In mail you write:

> You know, I've come across the same problem when running Traveller.
> What I think the game needs is a sort of "monster manual" with just
> a page on each minor race along with a picture. That would go a
> long way toward giving the GM some easily-digestable races to work
> with.

There exist two books from the CT days that are a reasonable start on
such: 

Spacefarer's Guide to Alien Races
Spacefarer's Guide to Alien Monsters

They were published by Phoenix Games back in 1979. There are also a
pair of books on planets. All the aliens, "monsters" and planets are
swiped from various SF books.

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 15 Jun 1997 20:58:24 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Fire in Zero-G (Re: Scenario: Generation-Ship)

In mail you write:

> Leonard Erickson wrote:
>> 
>> Just be *very* careful. The program wasn't very SF. For example, that
>> shipboard fire could have been fought in two different ways. First, cut
>> off the air. Ok, that's a bit hard on anybody trapped in there. But the
>> SF answer is "turn off the gravity". No gravity, no convection
>> currents, no flames. The fire strangles on its own smoke (no grav,
>> smoke don't "rise").
>> 
>
> Convection currents have little to do with the presence of a 
> gravitational field. Consider: the flame, in zero-G, creates a 
> high temperature, low pressure region of air in its immediate 
> vicinity. The lower temperature, higher pressure air further away
> immediately moves in to occupy the space, driving the warmer air
> out. That's the convection and gravity has nothing to do with it.

Sorry, but experiments on both the "vomit comet" and later on the
Space shuttle prove otherwise. The gases near the heat source get hot
and expand. But that's so that the *pressure* will remain constant.
There's *nothing* to make the outside air mix. The reason the warmer
air moves out of the way under g is that the warm air is less *dense*,
and thus rises. In zero g, the density differences don't cause movement.

In zero g a flame is *spherical and goes out as soon as it runs out of
oxygen, leaving a sphere of smoke. If you supply a slight breeze or if
you restore gravity, the flame will re-light! That's because you've got
a lot of free radicals floating around looking for something to react
with. There are some research projects studying the production of
various radicals in such "suspended" flames.

> Smoke particles will be carried away with the lower pressure air.

Sorry, all the air is at the same pressure. 

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 15 Jun 1997 22:33:37 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Shipyard Size

In mail you write:

> One point I've thought of in this discussion, (it really wouldn't matter
> in a mobile yard but does in planet based yards and may have to do with
> the difference between A and B class yards). How would a ground based
> yard get non-streamlined ships into orbit?

You assemble the ship in sections, then carry them to orbit for final
assembly. Just like we plan to do in the real world.

> Contrarily how would a
> non-streamlined ship land to utilize the facilities of a ground based
> port?

It won't. It'll get assigned a parking orbit (likely near a small space
station or at least a beacon) and if the ship doesn't have a
streamlined small craft, they pay someone to ferry things up and down.

If it does have a streamlined small craft (virtually certain) then they
use that to move things back and forth. 

This isn't that different from the real world seaports in places that
have lousy harbors. The big ships tie up at bouys a mile or more from
shore. Things get hauled back and forth in smaller vessels (cargo
lighters or barges).

> Since A class ports have space borne facilities I think they are natural
> to the construction of non-streamline ships as wellas their upkeep.
> Class B ports are more geared for surface to space vehicles.

Not necessarily. You can build ships in orbit without dedicated
"spacedock" facilities. It costs more and takes longer, but it is
doable. 

Also, don't forget that there are B ports on airless worlds or in
asteroid belts.

> The only problem with this is that non-streamlined ship should fall
> "ahead" of streamlined ships technology-wise?

Non-streamlined will come first WHERE IT IS POSSIBLE FOR IT TO COME
FIRST. Airless worlds and asteroid belts. Any "natives" of such will
never have heard of streamlining until humans or other air-breathing
aliens come along. 

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 15 Jun 1997 21:32:36 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Quick Physics Question

In mail you write:

>         Consider an orbital station, say around 5,000 metric tons mass.
> Now, suppose there was a ship docked to this station, of around 200 tons,
> but with rather robust engines (it's a ground-to-orbit cargo hauler,
> currently unloaded).  It is docked nose-on to the station, facing in the
> opposite direction from the station's orbital path.
>         Okay.  Now suppose this cargo hauler flares its engines, say about
> 5G for about 1.5 seconds.  What will be the effects?  Here are the main
> effects, as I envision them:

Well, it won't *do* 5 g with all that mass attached. instead it'll
supply 5*200=1000 tons thrust. So that's 1/5th g for 1.5 sec.

> 1.) The station suffers a sudden, sharp deceleration, dropping it below
> orbital velocity.  The station's orbit begins to decay.

You slow the station. Which puts it in a *higher* orbit! I'm not
kidding. Consider that a satellite at a 100 miles up orbits earth in 90
minutes, but the moon at 250,000 miles orbits in 29 *days*.

> 2.) The airlock the cargo hauler is docked to likely crumples under the
> sudden strain, possibly opening the hauler to space and parking it partway
> into the station itself. (Providing it holds together.)

Likely. But maybe not. The forces involved aren't *that* far from what
might happen if a big ship "bumped" the airlock in docking. So the
docking ring may hold, but the hull of the hauler may not. So it might
"crumple" around the docking collar.

> 3.) Everybody on the station not strapped down goes flying HARD against a
> convenient bulkhead, console, etc.

Not that hard. Remember, due to the added mass the accel goes down.
They'll be moving at all of 3 meters per second relative to the station
(1/5th g for 1.5 sec = 3 meters/sec)

>         Does this sound right?  Am I missing anything glaringly obvious?  I
> would appreciate any insight you guys can give me.

Well, as I noted, you missed the fact that slowing down moves you
*outwards*, and the fact that the extra mass drops the acceleration a lot.

That first bit is one of the many contra-intuitive laws of orbital
mechanics, and explains why docking manuevers are so automated in the
real world. Until you are practically on top of your target manuevers
just plain don't work the way you expect them to.

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

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End of Traveller-digest V1997 #1429
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