Johannes replied to me: > In my last mail, i was referring only to rescue missions. If the rescued > ship has still "operational" humans on board, you can do many missions > with sending a robot ship there, and having that crew take it over, when > it arrives.
Imagine a ship in trouble gets a quick "care package" in a fast robotic courier drone. As the courier is on the way, the messages from the ship get more desperate and the signal gets weaker. A few days before the drone arrives, messages cease entirely. The drone closes in to a few miles and video transmissions show debris in front of the docking hatch. What now? Perhaps a manned rescue vessel is on the way, following the drone with a slightly lower speed because it has a worse fuel-to-mass ratio. Then the question must be asked if you always send both, or if the mix of rescue vessels depends on the situation. OTOH, that doesn't sound like a rescue mission that was ready to launch with pre-configured ships. So I think that one can argue for a manned rescue vessel as default option. Regards, Onno _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
