GZG FT: Real world standards.

Phillip E. Pournelle <pepourne@nps.navy.mil>:
> For the sake of discussion, what are the standard conversion units from

I always thought they were whatever you wanted and could believe in and your
opponent agreed with. Hope this helps.

> Phillip E. Pournelle <pepourne@nps.navy.mil>:

Muttering over that kind of thing myself, I set up a spreadsheet with time vs
distance for constant acceleration. It turns out that at 450 seconds per turn,
the distance you travel in one turn's acceleration (distance in 1000's of
kilometers) is approximately the same as the thrust you use (measured in g's).
That is, acceleration at 1 gee over 450 seconds will move you approximately
1000km (1012.5, using one gee =
10m/sec^2--feel
free to convert to 9.8m/sec^2if you like).  (This ignores the fact that
if you accelerate over one turn such that you move a distance D during that
turn, then you will have a velocity of 2D at the end of that turn). 450
seconds also happens to be 7.5 minutes, which conveniently lets two FT turns
happen in one 15 minute DS2 turn. Fast Fighters (in FB) can move up to 48 MU,
and still arrive in condition to fight. Test pilots have taken 20g for short
periods (with
special equipment, etc--do not try this at home!) so perhaps 24g is not
too
remote a stretch.  Taking 1 thrust as 1/2g, that would make fast (thrust
8)
ships max out at 4g, which is a little heavy but reasonable. Alternately,
and perhaps more plausibly, one thrust could equal 1/4 g.  (The
difficulty with this is that planets become too large to put on the table).

> Phillip E. Pournelle <pepourne@nps.navy.mil>:

Exactly. The reason we never tied things down in FT (though we've been a
little more specific in the FB, but this ONLY refers to the "official" GZG
background) is that these units will be completely different for each
background - "semi-realistic" may have 1 inch/mu as several thousand Km,
a B5 style background might have an mu as a few hundred Km or less, and in
Trek-style it would be down to hundred of metres!!