On Mon, May 28, 2012 at 01:15:51PM -0700, Jon Lang wrote: >Absolutely. But without those money-saving devices, the show would >never have made it on air at all.
Surely. I'm not objecting to the devices in their role in the TV series, but when you're trying to build a _game_ with multiple players, rather than with just one script-writer who make characters forget to ask awkward questions, it's a very good idea to think through the implications of any technologies you put in. Players _will_ say "hang on, why can't we use the X to do Y", and the GM will have to have an answer. As a sort of corollary to this, I'm _very_ wary of reactionless thrusters. Reaction drives, even super-efficient total conversion thrusters, still need reaction mass, and there's a limit to just how much delta-V you can squeeze out of them. Reactionless drives, apart from breaking physics which I can live with, automatically give you planet-killing weapons: just plug together a drive and either a high-power reactor or solar panels, and wait a few months or even years, and you can slam into a planet at relativistic speed. And most settings have at least one group - and it doesn't have to be a big group - that would be willing to do this. Yes, there are ways round the problem, but I'm not really entirely convinced by any of them. R _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
