> > [McE] It would make more sense to me to have as close to matched drives,
> > [McE] be they 1000-ton or 1,017-ton. And be over the threshold
> > required. And call a 983-ton drive 'not-ripe' yet.
>
> Hello Nigel,
>
> my idea was to grow the drives at slightly different speeds, and
> to declare the entire bioship 'ripe' when their combined thrust
> matches the specs. Besides, that helps if you want a Spaceships
> variant ...
[McE]
> > > And bioships grow in use, or there are different sizes from the same
> > > pattern, the number of similar organs would stay the same. If a 10-ton
> > > bioshuttle has two "magic" reactionless thrusters, the 100-ton bioship
> > > and the 1,000,000-ton biocruiser would also have two units, where
> > > metal ships might have two (interchangeable) thrusters for the
> > > shuttle, and a dozen separate units for the cruiser.
> >
> > [McE] if the engines are organic and intergral, but not transplants,
> > yes.
>
> Increasing the number of drives would probably require structural
> changes as well.
[McE] Possibly. This is a colour item though - it depends on the way the
hull grows - which is a designed function anyway.
> > > And I have this habit of adding lots of different and redundant parts
> > > to my vehicles -- not just neutrino communicators and gravity ripple
> > > coms, but also radios and laser communicators. Adding a radio to a
> > > high-tech starship is cheap, and it helps if the primitive locals
> > > don't have superscience, or if a technobabble field jams superscience
> > > signals. Would a bioship have fewer of those "marginal" additions?
> >
> > [McE] ...are they also organic? If so they could be said to be
implanted
> > buds of stem cells, programmed at a later date to become bigger comms,
> > or more sensors
> > If they aint organic, but cybernetic - so to speak, then who cares?
> > Just install more.
>
> The rules don't make a difference between grown and implanted parts,
> mostly because there is so little biotech in VE to start with.
[McE] Which might be the problem, perhaps.
> [McE] If I added a metal superstructure to a biomech hull, then all parts
in
> the superstructure could be assumed to be mechanical, while all or
> most body parts are organic.
[McE] depends on where you draw the line between Hull and Superstructure.
Are you building and Oenone{Peter Hamilton}, or a Moya?
Moya appears to have a mechanical structure to her framing. Not so for
Oenone.
[Udat however...]
> Also, leaving out most of the "small fry" would allow a small but
> noticeable performance increase in the "main" systems -- a higher
> scan rating, perhaps, or bigger force fields.
[McE] ...does grow time get covered as a cost or is it a freebie? I mean,
referring back to Oenone, she grew attached to an asteroid for 20 years
before having superstructure bonded on and that cost enough that it takes
years of naval service to pay for it. [for her and Syrinx.]
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