On Fri, Feb 24, 2012 at 3:17 AM, Onno Meyer <[email protected]> wrote: > DataPacRat replied to me:
>> > There are rules on abrasion at very high speeds and for >> > micrometeorites in Spaceships 5. To survive random junk >> > impacts without damage, you would want dDR 3 to 15. >> >> Hm... are you going by page SS5 p39? The ship's trip will be using >> about 5 mps to accelerate and half that to decelerate, so by the rules >> we treat is speed as 10 mps; if the once-a-year encounter roll is >> positive (3-4 on 3d6), and if the e-beam's point-defense fails, and if >> the ship fails to dodge, then, in general, 1d6 damage will be done to >> the front hull, right? >> >> If that's the case - then would it make more sense to stick about 6 >> dDr armor on the front section, such as one space of SM+8 >> unstreamlined light alloy armor? > > Hello DataPacRat, > > I'm going with p 39, but I was assuming protection against > cometary junk at 50 mps at the high end. Against that, the > frontal protection won't work -- a piece of debris might > just as well come from behind or from the sides. And the damage would be 5d6, requiring 30 points of armor, on all three sections, to protect against; which, at TL9 SM+8, would require six spaces of advanced metallic laminate. Hm... Would it be plausible to assume that such regions of cometary junk had been previously mapped out? >> > For a hundred people or less, with specialized jobs, I see just >> > two options -- a kind of socialist dictatorship, where they all >> > meet to schedule work and everybody has to abide by it, or a >> > plain dictatorship, where a smaller group calls the shots. >> > >> > Any market system will break down due to monopolies and >> > prohibitive entry costs to break them. A miner can't become a >> > surgeon on short notice, or vice versa. >> >> Hm... Thinking a bit about this, the true value of a marketplace is in >> being able to set prices, to quantify how much X is valued compared to >> Y. > > A market with a currency and prices also helps to express > and evaluate individual choices. For example, I live in a > smaller than average flat, and spend more than average on > books. For me, more books are more valuable than a little > bit more space. Other people choose differently. > > The currency also helps to facilitate exchanges. Say you > are a programmer who likes oranges. Does the farmer need > a bit of code right now? When there is enough leeway that you have the option of choosing more space or more books, and the farmer has the option of getting a program or not, then that's certainly an ideal opportunity for a market system. But as I said in my previous post: >> But in a potential market in which there are various X's and Y's >> which are irreplaceable, and whose continued existence is >> fundamentally required in order for any sort of market to exist at >> all... then it's probably a good time to ignore the standard advice of >> free market proponents, as such advice depends on assumptions which >> don't apply. > > A decent family is communist -- no currency or marketplace > for internal transactions, to each according to his or her > needs, from each according to her or his abilities, all > decisions are made by a non-elected group of people who > claim that they know what is best for all. Oh, and the > youngsters are indoctrinated to perpetuate the system and > to honor the old guys in the 'politburo'. > > For larger groups -- towns, cities, nations -- communism > doesn't work nearly as well. Size is one of the key > factors. > > The turning point for your colony will come when it is time > to switch from a command economy to a market economy. There > will be people with a vested interest in keeping a command > economy, people who will benefit from an early change, and > others who benefit from a later change. At the initial colonization stage - or, even earlier, while the colony is still being planned out - then it seems unlikely that very many of the decisions made by the colonists will be so fixed in place as to be unchangeable, and also to have a significant impact on when that changeover will happen, and how to ease the transition. There is at least one, though: for 2500 bucks per month per person, a medical regime can be bought which effectively halves the aging rate... which, if that tech is brought along in one form or another, may mean that the original colonists will still be hanging around promoting their viewpoints for decades longer than they would without it. (I really need to find my copy of Bio-Tech to refresh my memory about whether there's some equivalent to the Spaceships' factory, which can be designed to produce a given amount of a given drug - pharm goats or pharm fungi, perhaps.) 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
