Brandon Cope wrote:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Volker:
Hey! Thanks for the response!
I'm pretty much in agreement, but within a G:Space framework, how does one
reflect the differences in technological aims, as you call it? FrEx, looking
at airliner engines vs. jet fighter engines. I can tell the difference, but
how can that be represented in two starships using GURPS-like build rules?
You could have the military engines 20% lighter but 50% more expensive.
That rises an interesting point about the principle difference between
military and civilian gear.
In most cases, but especially in wartime, when the military asks for a
piece of technology to be built they will tell the designers what they
want it to do and only worry about the cost essentially after the fact.
Governments at war do not pinch pennies when it comes to weaponry when
their very survival is at stake.
Civilian technology (assuming any sort of market forces are at work) is
the exact opposite. The cost of production and distribution is one of
the MOST important consideration in technological development. Unlike
military applications, in the civilian world practicality and cost are
inextricably linked. something that does the job ten times better than
the last technology you used but is too expensive to use on a reasonable
scale is not doing the job at all. This is why the government can use
nuclear reactors for all kinds of purposes, but civilian uses of atomic
energy are much more difficult to justify. There are certainly practical
reasons why fission reactors are difficult to justify to generate
electricity, but the main reason we don't see nearly as many nuclear
power plants as previously is because they are so much more expensive to
operate than just about any other method of power generation.
Maybe that's why the people who want the nuclear power plants shut down
don't demand that the navy shut down all those submarines and aircraft
carriers that are powered essentially the same way. The Navy has no
reason to care how much it costs to operate the fleet if the alternative
is the government of the United States being destroyed....
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