Agreed, the scale of game time is important. On the other hand, if the GM knows that the duration of the journey will be a bit longer than if just using "stationary" planets as targets concept, he can at least know by how much. Also? Those transfer orbits discuss varying windows of departure/arrival based on the delta-v of the ship in question. It would be nice to be able to calculate those windows to a degree better than "winging it" ;)
-----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Jon Lang Sent: Monday, October 10, 2011 1:01 AM To: The GURPSnet mailing list Subject: Re: [gurps] Planetary movement and checking the Math Kurt makes a good point. In the Solar System, only Mercury and Venus have orbital periods measured in weeks or months; everything beyond that is measured in years (Earth and Mars) or decades (Jupiter, Saturn, etc.) Unless your spacecraft are slow enough to have travel times measured in months or years, you can pretty much treat nearly every planet in the Solar System as a stationary object; and if you _do_ have travel times that long or longer, you're either going to have copious down-time in your campaign, or the vast majority of your campaign will take place on board a "slow-boat" that is, for all intents and purposes, a miniature world of its own adrift between the planets: on the typical scale of adventures, it too might as well be stationary. -- Jonathan "Dataweaver" Lang _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
