I'm thinking about a sublight interstellar craft with the Vehicles rules. The optimized fusion rocket allows perhaps 2% of lightspeed, so trips will take centuries. That leaves cryosleep and generation ships. The sleeper doesn't translate well into Spaceships, so I'm looking at a generation ship.
* Fusion reactors are supposed to last 200 years. I'm assuming that is from first ignition, not from construction, or I wouldn't have a chance anyway. Ten reactors can last 2,000 years and roughly 10 parsec ... * Vehicles says nothing about the efficiency of total life support. If I call it 99.9%, the ship would need provisions for 2 years. I don't envision actual foodstuffs, more like spare seeds and fertilizer, but mass is mass. Does that sound reasonable? * How much of a population do I need? There might be frozen ova to help with genetic diversity, but it wouldn't do to have the only qualified engineer slip and break his neck. There must be some redundancy. And even if there are hundreds of people, the kids will grow up weird in that small world. * How do I handle spare parts? There must be some manufacturing capability, call it complete workshops and minifacs from UT, but they still need materials. * What is the mission plan once the ship arrives in a system? I guess they'll capture an asteroid and begin mining and building and breeding. Bringing landers and terraforming gear takes too much mass, so they are only blueprints on file. A fraction of the total delta-V should be ample for insystem purposes. Thoughts? _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
