Vector Rules are Backround Dependent

Status: RO

As another not so subtle flame war gently erupts...

IMHO it all depends on your background. If you're doing Star Trek then rapidly
spinning about for a huge ship makes sense and its even happened on screen
when the big E met the Q in Encounter At Far Point

If you're trying to simulate battle in 21st Century then
you probably want to take mass/inertia into account and
then a lot of the points about physics are true.

B5 is probably the closest to reality there is in
SF TV/films, even though in some of the episodes the ships
seem to be pulling very high G turns for example
"sk** d**cing".

Honor H has inertial damping for acceleration but they turn like wet navy
ships.

Thus take the *current* generic Real Thrust rules and add modifications for
your background where they make sense.

Do we gain anything from a discussion on the validity of generic rules for
each genre? Probably not a lot.

sincerely

On Oct 8, 1997 at 10:59:42 AM, Tim Jones <Tim.Jones@Smallworld.co.uk> wrote:

Status: RO

> Thus take the *current* generic Real Thrust rules and add

> for each genre? Probably not a lot.

I think there are some backgrounds for which vector movement isn't
appropriate, as well. Star Trek and Star Wars don't really make sense with
vector movement, the former becasue of handwaving, the latter because it is
simply ignored.

Note, however, that a large chunk of the current conversation was about *ship
rotation*, not about vector movement per se, and many of the points apply
whether we are discussing a system for which vector movement is applicable or
not. To use ST:TNG as an example (which I hate doing, but it fits), Sternbach
realized that using "conventional" ship construction, the Enterprise would
fold like a house of cards anytime it tried to turn outside of warp. For this
reason he invented the Structural Integrity Field, which runs through the main
structural members and the hull, boosting the strength up to 125k% higher than
the material alone. Handwaving, yes, but necessary handwaving.