So, is there any size limit to a ship in the FB rules?
Also, what is the maximum size of a ship that can enter a planet's atmosphere?
Streamlining aside, what do people think should be an upper limit to a ship
that can enter the atmosphere? I'm sure that Mike Johnson will say not as
large as what I fielded, and I might have to agree with him. I do remember a
story were there was a very large star ship that mathed the orbital velocity
of a planet and slowly eased into the atmosphere.
Ideas anyone?
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
It effectively comes down to whether the hull is build strongly enough to
maintain it's shape under gravity. Starships would primarily be designed for
most of the accelerations stress through the drives, but for planetary
landings, it would need to also accept the stresses via landing gear (or a
water displacement landing in the nearest ocean). Theoretically, I guess you
could land a ship the size of the Death Star on a planet, but it would
collapse under its own weight or do nasty things to the local terrain.
After all that, I would say the largest ship designed for planetfall
would be 150-200 mass, as it would be grossly inefficient for anything
larger to bother (when there's shuttles available).
'Neath Southern Skies
http://users.mcmedia.com.au/~denian/
*****
T'was brillig, & the slithy toves, Did gyre & gimle in the wabe. All mimsy
were the borogroves, And mome raths outgrabe.
- Lewis Carroll "Through the Looking Glass".
[quoted original message omitted]
> At 15:37 04/12/98 +1100, you wrote:
SNIP
> 'Neath Southern Skies
I remember an old Heinlein in which massive (colony ship-type) "torch
ships" took off and landed from the sea. I seem to recall they were spherical,
but at any rate it might make a (fairly feeble) excuse to have spacecraft with
watercraft shaped hulls.
Rob
> So, is there any size limit to a ship in the FB rules?
The number of points you've got to spend! :-)
> Also, what is the maximum size of a ship that can enter a planet's
Probably the absolute maximum is the ID4 starships. According to a American
professor, who wrote a book about TV and Movie SF, the ID4 starships didn't
need to fire a laser beam into the heart of the city, just hovering would have
flattened the city! So, if your ship needs more than the population of a small
town to crew it, it's probably tooooooo big! Why not allow up to 1000 MASS as
the upper limit? Or, because most star ships are built in space, the upper
limit is 10 MASS as this is lander size. Or, you could split the difference
and choose 100 MASS as the upper limit. It really depends on your chosen
genre.
> On Fri, Dec 04, 1998 at 06:59:10AM +0000, Rob Paul wrote:
"Inherit the Stars"? It's the one with the twin telepaths for FTL
communications.
I don't think they were spherical -- rather, they were cones
with hemispheres on top, like Traveller's X-boats.
Tear dropped shape according to the original cover art for Inherit the Stars.
> Robert Crawford wrote:
"torch ships"
> > took off and landed from the sea. I seem to recall they were
Maybe you should tell them the whole story. It was an 1100 ton ship
with partial streamlining and a bunch of marines (the scenario was that we had
to take a planet). Before landing the drives were damaged so its thrust was
slightly less then needed for a safe re-entry. Needless to say it was a
"controlled" crash to the planets surface yet going by the rules the ship took
no damage. Now personally I don't think that 1100 ton ships should be able to
land. But then thats just a personal opinion.:>
Michael Johnson Micron Internet Service Customer Support
208-368-5400
http://www.webpak.net/~mrjohn
[quoted original message omitted]