From: Thomas Barclay <Thomas.Barclay@s...>
Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2001 13:26:56 -0500
Subject: IAVRs/SG2/DS2 grav
1) John A: Please cite the reference where grav vehicles can fly in SG or DS. I was under the impression Grav mobility in GZG was "a few feet off the ground" rather than VTOL/Aerospace style flying. 2) Brian: A figure can only fire an IAVR if he does not fire his rifle or SAW in the same activation. If the rules don't explicitly say this, to quote my friend OO, then "they're wrong!".;) 3) MDC: small MDCs (GACs) especially I always envisioned as having much higher ROF than equivalent RFACs. I assumed this continued into the larger weapons to give the better effective stats for an MDC. 4) There is some minimum amount of space a human needs to go to space to be comfortable over the longer term (as the term increases, so probably does the space requirement). This includes both the gear to support him or her and the extra "living space" required to prevent them going "postal". Similarly, if you needed to make a 45 min trip to orbit, a 4 hour skip to another continent, and a 45 min descent, then the APC has to have enough space to make this feasible. But note that we contemplate military actions in sealed suits and using PA - staying inside a shell like that for more than 11 or 12 hours must be hell. What is the duration limit for an astronaut on a spacewalk nowadays? I can't see that much more than doubling in the GZGverse times. So on any planet where you operate that has unbreathable atmosphere, you'll need places for people to get in and get their kit off regularly. But what people can endure when they must certainly tends to exceed what they can endure _with_comfort_. 5) I'm not so sure I agree with 40 grav generators. You are protecting yourself against a single point of failure by introducing the likelihood of multiple smaller failures. Quite simply, in any system of high reliability (I'm thinking 98%+), reliability engineering studies over the years have shown that triple redundancy is the best - beyond that, you run the risk of your system suffering failures due to being "too redundant" and then you end up with a lower overall reliability. By introducing 40 individual grav modules, I'm making 40 rolls of the d100 and conceivably one or two will come up 99 or 100 regularly. I'd think two or three large redundant systems (hey, backup systems, what a concept) would be key (unless you are the ESU). Is there any reason a null-grav, contra-grav, a-grav (whatever) generator can't be as simple as a large electromagnet? (ie perhaps solid state with no moving parts). I assume that electromagnets fail.... very very very rarely. Only a major materials failure would cause it. I'm not saying we can do this now, but who knows? Maybe we'll discover a way to negate mass effects or to provide counter force to gravitational force with a very robust and simple mechanism with few or no failure prone parts. Mind you, in this case, everyone WILL buy grav tanks.