On Thu, Sep 8, 2011 at 12:21 PM, Onno Meyer <[email protected]> wrote: > DataPacRat wrote:
>> Since there'll be a lot of them, they should be fairly cheap; > > That could be penny wise and pound foolish. Moving stuff in orbit, > at TL8, requires fuel to move the fuel to move the fuel. Saving a > few pounds of weight could really pay. Well, by 'fairly cheap' I was thinking more of avoiding $100,000+ parts in each one. >> they should have at least a minimal >> ability to move themselves around without external assistance, to >> allow for docking; > >> P&P: 36,364-kWs advanced battery, six 10 lbs. thrust MOX rockets >> (vectored thrust, Isp 278, delta-V 0 mph; long term access). >> >> Fuel: 64.8 gal standard fuel tank (fire modifier -2), 5.4 gal >> metal/LOX (fire 13). > > Are those suitable for docking? > > * The exhaust is molten sand. Do you want that near a habitat? > * The accel is so low that the final approach will take an > eternity. Both troubles freely admitted. I suppose that since the builders have access to the occasional tame comet, I don't necessarily have to worry as much about the difficulty of acquiring CHON-based fuels. Argon would still seem to be rare; my Vehicles Expansions are currently MIA, so I'm going to have to do a bit of digging to find the stats for nitrogen-fuelled cold-gas thrusters. >> Equipment >> All: sealed. Body: metal armor volume; short range radio communicator >> (1-mile range); GPS; small computer (complexity 1; dumb); burglar >> alarm (Skill-15); 1-man airlock; six radars (scan 5, 0.1-mile range; >> no targeting). > > * Backup commo and sensors would be really cheap. So they would. > * No terminal? The setting diverges somewhat from standard G:Vehicles for terminals - they're mostly treated as being ubiquitous, near-free, and near-weightless. > * No targeting means no rangefinding. In space, that would be > really useful. Wups - I'd seen the 'no targeting' and 'often used by civilians', and missed the 'no rangefinding'. > * OTOH, you don't need six sensors for a full sphere coverage. > Each covers half a sphere, so four are enough. Noted. >> TL8 light frame cheap materials [Vehicle]. >> TL8 DR 5 standard metal [Vehicle]. >> Vehicle Features: primitive controls, no streamlining, cheaply made. > > Primitive controls with rockets? <forehead-slap> Missed fiddling with that entry in GVB. > And as mentioned above, the > cost of maintenance and of moving the empty weight will be > substantial. I'm hoping to cover most maintenance with cyberswarms. >> Body: underbelly skid. > > Where do you plan to land? Luna. Possibly some small asteroids/comets that've been pushed into Earth-Lunar orbital space. Thank you for your time, -- DataPacRat lu .iacu'i ma krinu lo du'u .ei mi krici la'e di'u li'u traji lo ka vajni fo lo preti _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
