> Michael Llaneza wrote:
> At 4:30 PM -0800 11/4/99, Jeff Miller wrote:
I wasn't relying on the shockwave but the heat. Maybe just fly over a mini
fission reactor and pull the rods. Just China Syndrome the ship....
The hardest thing for me was figuring out a way to damage someone while going
faster than light using what we know about physics.
Maybe a tachyon beam? You could probably only produce one while going faster
than light and it would not effect anyone going slower than light.
Unfortuantly, within the ship, relative to the ship, everything is going at
speeds that are relatively slower than light.
> The closest to a missile used in Lensman is a big
Yeah, but how often is *that* going to happen. Unless you are referring to the
inertail velocity. But thinking about how you can fire a beam while going FTL
gives me a headache. <grin>
> >Nope, the fun thing about inertialess is that except in an
That could do it too.
I had been thinking about shape. I figured that Partially Airodynamic would
give
the ship a +1 on their movement multiplier. Fully Airodynamic would
operate like partial, the extra airodynamics would be offset by the drag of
teh lifting surfaces. Alternatively, I would propose another shape Needle
Shaped. It would
give a +2 on the movement modifier but would function in an atmosphere,
it acts as Partially Airodynamic.
> >The major restriction that I'm puting on them is that without
Yep.
I want to come up with a functional, not uber movement system.
> At 11:06 AM -0800 11/5/99, Jeff Miller wrote:
Heat is IR radiation, which is (can be) treated as particles impacting the
ship. There's a handwave available in that there is always some resistance to
the ship, so the inertialess drive can't avoid 100% of the energy transfer,
and a big warhead might transfer enough energy to hurt the ship. This is all
pretty clear in GURPS Lensman
> The hardest thing for me was figuring out a way to damage someone while
Beams in the Lensman series are usually described (in the novels) as "a
corruscating beam of pure force."
> > The closest to a missile used in Lensman is a big
The target is tractored at short range, you just have to manage that. In fact,
in GURPS Lensman all beam combat requires that the ships be tractored together
or the impact and recoil of the beams would throw the ships around like a leaf
in a hurricane, explosions are equally ineffective.
> I had been thinking about shape. I figured that Partially
And streamlining is already in the FT design sequence, so we're set.
> >
Barring a requirement for ultra-rare minerals (like GDW did with
stutterwarp in T2300) a Bergenholm drive from the Lensman series is an uber
drive. Now a toned down version with no (or minimal) acceleration limits, fast
turns and a fixed but high maximum speed would be deadly but not uber.
> Michael Llaneza wrote:
> >> >Weapons fire gets tricky since beams don't work at FTL speeds (if
Yeah, I know. Maybe the bomb grapples or otherwise sticks to the enemy ship?
At any rate the ships shouldn't just sit there and stare at each other. <grin>
> There's a handwave available in that there is
It's been a whil since I read that supliment.
> >The hardest thing for me was figuring out a way to damage someone
Uh, OK. <grin>
I could handwave it like that too. I would just rather avoid it.
> > > The closest to a missile used in Lensman is a big
The trouble with that is that I'm not entirely comforable with tractor beams.
<grin>
> >I had been thinking about shape. I figured that Partially
Yep. Where possible, use existing rules.
> >> >The major restriction that I'm puting on them is that without
Yep. I figured there were three ways that you could handle the
inertialess/inertail conflicts. One, assume that innertialess ships
move too fast to shoot at or be shot by inertial ships. The second is to
balance slow
inertialess (semi-inertialess) movement. The third is to assume that
combat canot take place while inertialess. In tht case the rules are
functionally the same as those already in the book.