Johannes replied to me: [...] > I am thinking about a setup like for a flash for photography. You have 2 > batteries there, the proper battery and the capacitor. Needing only one > would be preferable, but technical restrictions make it impossible for > either to be used alone. You could use some technobabble explaination for > having powered FTl modules. > > Contemporary ground cars have lead acid batteries too, if built with > vehicles, even though with regards to vehicle stats, they are only dead > weight. You can have the same with sf scenarios, as long as you are > consistent about it.
The more complicated the FTL and power setup, the more likely it seems to me that you'd put it into the main ship. If it is such a fragile thing, should you couple and un-couple it all the time? It would help if you had things like "parts of the FTL drive must be mounted at the end of a long boom" or "FTL drives can't be armored", but that is not covered by the 3E rules. And Brandon wrote: > > I'm trying to explore the question Eric raised. No firm > > goal > > yet, just a general devil's advocate. > > > > A) The FTL component has just the FTL drive, no STL drive > > at > > all. > > B) The FTL component has STL maneuvering thrusters, but not > > > > enough for long STL flights (whatever that > > is in context). > > C) The FTL component has proper STL drives as well. > > > > If you argue that it can't be A), why stop at half > > measures? > > Because the FTL component doesn't need full thrust. It's not going to land > or takeoff from a world (it really shouldn't even be streamlined). It can > stay hooked to the STL component until until it reaches a space station. If you have a station, there is no need to have the STL component land. > Then, as I see it, the FTL component unhooks from the STL component (which > is unloading passengers and cargo, or landing on the planet). The FTL > component then maneuvers to an FTL component being readied to leave and hooks Typo? > on to it, or maneuvers away from the space traffic if one isn't ready or if > it will attach to a ship that is landed on planet. Wouldn't that be more efficient if a combined FTL/STL ship drops containers and picks up new ones? I'm starting to think that from TL11 upwards, separate FTL modules can't win with the baseline 3E technology. A few months ago I brainstormed with some of you how to measure the efficiency of a starship. My current formula is (cargo plus occupants) times speed divided by cost cargo in tons speed is pc/day cost is in million GURPS-$. occupants counts both passengers and crew Problems with this formula are that STL speeds and landing capability are ignored, and that the crew for a freighter should really be a minus, not a plus, while it is right to count 'science crew' for a scout as payload. I can do freighters with an 'efficiency number' well over 50. Is that possible for a modular ship? Regards, Onno _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
