From: Andrew Sturman [andrew_b_sturman@yahoo.co.uk] Sent: Friday, April 27, 2001 7:27 AM To: blue_planet@lists.ient.com Subject: RE: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - Deckplans HI All --- "chalz@earthlink.net" wrote: > In the meantime, here are some links: Thanks Charles, those look excellent. Specific deckplans from your link pointers I'll be using are: DeepWater2 - floating warehouse(like those in Haven?) http://www.wareships.com/deepw2.htm 5 floor Hotel Barge (living quarters for 150-300) http://www.floatinghotels.com/olympia.htm Combine a few of these and you have a complete floating company town. (Since they've been deployed in Gulf of Mexico IRL one assumes they can weather the occasional hurricane, but evacuating one in the face of a Noah would be fun) A few random thoughts relating to deckplans... They all have helipads - today we use helicopters a lot. What major advantages do Aerodynes/jumpcraft have over them to explain their obsolescence? I can see Osprey-style tilt-rotor VTOLs replacing many. Would we still find them in some niches, along with my other favourite, solar-powered airships? Historically, ships have been getting steadily bigger, with today's supertankers and aircraft carriers dwarfing the HMS Victory-sized ships of 1800. Should we anticipate a similar growth in ships of Poseidon another 200 years on? Apart from Dyffd, anyone got any Cityships or Farmships cruising the seas? (Given the advances in hydroponics from Spacer culture, and the threatening local life on many islands, a mile-long Farmship might be an excellent way to grow the rare earth delicacies that required carefully controlled growth conditions) Who's built the first Poseidon aircraft carrier? I can imagine Gendiver wanting one off the Sierra Nuenva chain, but it would sure worry GEO. Make a nice story seed, with distinctly star-wars echo's of the evil Incorp building it's superweapon ^H^H^carrier off a remote island, and the various factions spying on it and wanting to sabotage it. And finally, after Dom's wooden boats for native's pointers, I wanted to discuss Poseidon trees. Can the lucky ones who already have Natural Selection say if it has anything on trees, specifically for boat-building? The existing books kind of suggest most native boats are bioplastic, or am I reading that wrong? At least that would prevent ship-yard's deforesting islands. Dom, as I understand it from my very limited boat-building(and I worked in foamed plastics, epoxy and glassfiber), a wooden boat wants both hard keelwood and soft steam-shaped hull planking. Can you give us more details on what sort of wood/trees a native boatbuilder would look for? I can see Incorporate executive's paying a lot for a well-crafted Poseidon wood boat.(or for real excess, one of imported earth-woods) Another story-seed as a theft target or reward, or a story about a native resistance group blackmailing the native builder to add a few undetectable puzzlebox-like 'special features' to that Gendiver VP's catamaran...for late night scorpion surprise? Ok, enough for one day :) Cheers Andrew ____________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.co.uk address at http://mail.yahoo.co.uk or your free @yahoo.ie address at http://mail.yahoo.ie *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.ient.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Andrew Ragland [araglan@us.ibm.com] Sent: Friday, April 27, 2001 6:27 AM To: blue_planet@lists.ient.com Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - Old Article I didn't save it, unfortunately, and now Themestream is gone. Darn. I want a copy if you find the article. Thanks. Andrew Ragland Information Hunter/Gatherer: Explorer, Mapmaker, Guide araglan@us.ibm.com t/l 348-6665 ph (847) 240-6665 Skytel 1731111 "It is our choices ... that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." -- A. Dumbledore "chalz@earthlink.net" @lists.ient.com on 04/26/2001 08:42:09 PM Please respond to blue_planet@lists.ient.com Sent by: owner-blue_planet@lists.ient.com To: "blue_planet@lists.ient.com" cc: Subject: [BLUE PLANET] - Old Article I was searching for a web page someone posted a while ago in the mailing list archives. Unfortunately, the referenced site has gone kaputt. Did anyone save this article to their local systems? Could you mail me a copy? Maybe Andrew did? I use search engines to find this article by title, and all I get are links to the Blue Planet list archives! :P Thanks!!!! --Charles ( chalz@earthlink.net ) Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2001 14:41:08 -0600 From: "Andrew Ragland" Subject: [BLUE PLANET] - Themestream article: 10 Reasons Kids Should Play Roleplaying Games Thought this link might be of interest, especially to those of you who have been following my homeschooler campaign. 10 Reasons Kids Should Play Roleplaying Games http://www.themestream.com/gspd_browse/reg/content.gsp?c_id=335196&pid=002301000001 Andrew Ragland Information Hunter/Gatherer: Explorer, Mapmaker, Guide araglan@us.ibm.com t/l 348-6665 ph (847) 240-6665 Skytel 1731111 "It is our choices ... that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." - -- A. Dumbledore -------------------------------------------------------------------- Mail2Web - Check your email from the web at http://www.mail2web.com/ . *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.ient.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.ient.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Heivilin, Jim [banzai@missouri.edu] Sent: Friday, April 27, 2001 9:08 AM To: 'blue_planet@lists.ient.com' Subject: [FWD] RE: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - Deckplans > -----Original Message----- > Reply-To: hanrahag@iol.ie > From: "Gar Hanrahan" > To: blue_planet@lists.ient.com > Subject: RE: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - Deckplans > Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2001 13:03:42 -0000 > > >A few random thoughts relating to deckplans... > > > >They all have helipads - today we use helicopters a > >lot. What major advantages do Aerodynes/jumpcraft have > >over them to explain their obsolescence? > > Jumpcraft are just as manoeverable(sp?) if not more so, while > being tougher > and not relying on a vulnerable rotor. > > >Historically, ships have been getting steadily bigger, > >with today's supertankers and aircraft carriers > >dwarfing the HMS Victory-sized ships of 1800. Should > >we anticipate a similar growth in ships of Poseidon > >another 200 years on? > > Building them would be difficult - there are only one or two > towns with the > industrial base and dockyards to put something like that > together. Atlas > could probably do it. > > >Apart from Dyffd, anyone got any > >Cityships or Farmships cruising the seas? > > Well, there's Nomad, and I think there's a second > Dyfedd-class cityship on > the drawing boards. > > >Who's built the first Poseidon aircraft carrier? I can > >imagine Gendiver wanting one off the Sierra Nuenva > >chain, but it would sure worry GEO. Make a nice story > >seed, with distinctly star-wars echo's of the evil > >Incorp building it's superweapon ^H^H^carrier off a > >remote island, and the various factions spying on it > >and wanting to sabotage it. > > I think Santa Elena is close enough to the war zone to > support air attacks > without GenDiver needing a carrier. (But I don't have my > books with me right > now, so I may be misremembering the maps). Anyway, GenDiver's > secret weapon > would probably be a happy biogenetic weapon (given they've > got the "source > code" for the native's biomods, a tailored virus should be > fairly easy (was > this in an Access Denied already? It sounds familiar and more > than a little > obvious...)) > > >Andrew > Gar > http://www,mytholder.f2s.com > ______________________________________________________________ > ___________ > Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.ient.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: chalz@earthlink.net Sent: Friday, April 27, 2001 12:01 PM To: blue_planet@lists.ient.com Subject: RE: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - Old Article I didn't save it, unfortunately, and now Themestream is gone. Darn. I want a copy if you find the article. Thanks. ** Foo. There's a new little game shop in this town where there'd never been a game shop before, and the owner gets parents coming in all the time asking about the content of card games and roleplaying games, and when I mentioned the article, he asked if I could print it out for him to use in his store. Whoops. I did a 'whois' on themestream, and the administrative/technical/billing contact I got, I tried emailing him but get 'user not found'. Wonderful :P --Charles -------------------------------------------------------------------- Mail2Web - Check your email from the web at http://www.mail2web.com/ . *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.ient.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: chalz@earthlink.net Sent: Friday, April 27, 2001 12:19 PM To: blue_planet@lists.ient.com Subject: RE: RE: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - Deckplans **** Thanks Charles, those look excellent. ** :) I felt like contributing, and usually have pretty decent luck when data mining. I found a relatively great lack of blue prints and deck plans around, but I'm sure not /that/ many people request them, and those that do probably have direct lines to the engineering firms involved. **** 5 floor Hotel Barge (living quarters for 150-300) http://www.floatinghotels.com/olympia.htm ** There were stats on one of the barges at, I think, barges.com which could house something like 750. Interesting thought that just crossed my mind, I live up in the area of the Thousand Islands (you know, like Thousand Islands Dressing?), on the St. Lawrence Seaway in New York. On a tour of the area around Alexandria Bay, you see a lot of situations where people have homes, restaurants, and even a couple castles situated on little isolated islands. There's a restaurant there exclusive to the point of only people with their own private boats can get in ;) It's pretty interesting seeing boat garages and no driveways. And yeah, castles. Like Boldt Castle on Hart Island (which was shaped into a heart, with a scale replica of l'Arc de Triomphe). Just a thought that hit me. **** deployed in Gulf of Mexico IRL one assumes they can weather the occasional hurricane, but evacuating one ** Possibly. I've also noticed that, aside from the 'jackup' designs, most of the designs I saw are basically ready-to-move. Oil drilling ships and barge hotels. Presumably you could get them back to port when something too rough hits. **** They all have helipads - today we use helicopters a lot. What major advantages do Aerodynes/jumpcraft have over them to explain their obsolescence? I can see Osprey-style tilt-rotor VTOLs replacing many. Would we still find them in some niches, along with my other favourite, solar-powered airships? ** Personally, I don't see why not. It never did occur to me, though, not to see helicopters in the books. I would think, in my own opinion, that helicopters could be more fuel efficient for heavy-lift transport than VTOLs. Aside from that, recent history tends to show us that VTOLs are not very stable right now. It seems to require a pretty high amount of training, attention, and digital computation to keep everything running smoothly. The Harrier, for instance. Also, jet-oriented vehicles would typically be faster, if that's what you're interested in. Aside from that, VTOLs are just plain waycool ;) **** another 200 years on? Apart from Dyffd, anyone got any Cityships or Farmships cruising the seas? (Given the advances in hydroponics from Spacer culture, and the threatening local life on many islands, a mile-long Farmship might be an excellent way to grow the rare earth delicacies that required carefully controlled growth conditions) ** I dig big things like that. Like giant dirigibles. You have no idea how much I'd love to see those flying overhead more than just the Goodyear blimp. I recall mention in ... err.. v1 or v2 of a sort of 'mish-mash raft' style habitation, like around the Walls. Also, have you read Neal Stephenson's "Snow Crash"? In it, a private individual has purchased the US aircraft carrier Enterprise, and as it moves around the Pacific unpowered (moved just by the currents), people from the western side of the ocean will often come out with boats (like, little crap dinghies) and rafts and barrels and boxes (think Cuban refugees) to get onto the Enterprise, or latch on to it, to the point of whole communities and miniature cities connected to it, along with old oil tankers and such. I think this would make for an interesting example. **** Who's built the first Poseidon aircraft carrier? I can imagine Gendiver wanting one off the Sierra Nuenva ** You'd have to have some serious ability to move, or some serious stability to be able to survive the year-long cyclonics that pop up. **** chain, but it would sure worry GEO. Make a nice story seed, with distinctly star-wars echo's of the evil Incorp building it's superweapon ^H^H^carrier off a remote island, and the various factions spying on it and wanting to sabotage it. ** Neat idea :) **** Incorporate executive's paying a lot for a well-crafted Poseidon wood boat.(or for real excess, one of imported earth-woods) ** Hehehe... a hollowed-out redwood. There ya go. --Charles -------------------------------------------------------------------- Mail2Web - Check your email from the web at http://www.mail2web.com/ . *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.ient.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: David R. Crowell [gpfarm-dave@northnet.org] Sent: Friday, April 27, 2001 2:11 PM To: blue_planet@lists.ient.com Subject: Re: RE: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - Deckplans > **** > They all have helipads - today we use helicopters a > lot. What major advantages do Aerodynes/jumpcraft have > over them to explain their obsolescence? I can see > Osprey-style tilt-rotor VTOLs replacing many. Would we > still find them in some niches, along with my other > favourite, solar-powered airships? > ** > Personally, I don't see why not. It never did occur to me, though, not to see helicopters in the books. I would think, in my own opinion, that helicopters could be more fuel efficient for heavy-lift transport than VTOLs. > Aside from that, recent history tends to show us that VTOLs are not very stable right now. It seems to require a pretty high amount of training, attention, and digital computation to keep everything running smoothly. The Harrier, for instance. Also, jet-oriented vehicles would typically be faster, if that's what you're interested in. Aside from that, VTOLs are just plain waycool ;) Certainly Tilt-rotors such as Osprey seem to have a long road ahead of them. It is quite possible that helicopters and fixed wing conventional aircraft are in use on Posiedon, just didn't make it into the game books because the tech isn't "kewl" enough. What say you Jim and Greg? > > **** > another 200 years on? Apart from Dyffd, anyone got any > Cityships or Farmships cruising the seas? > (Given the advances in hydroponics from Spacer > culture, and the threatening local life on many > islands, a mile-long Farmship might be an excellent > way to grow the rare earth delicacies that required > carefully controlled growth conditions) > ** > I dig big things like that. Like giant dirigibles. You have no idea how much I'd love to see those flying overhead more than just the Goodyear blimp. Think bigger, think rigid craft, Think Zeppelin! I know I will be including airships in my game, they are just too good a technology not to include, cheap, energy efficient, just slow is all. I recall mention in ... err.. v1 or v2 of a sort of 'mish-mash raft' style habitation, like around the Walls. Also, have you read Neal Stephenson's "Snow Crash"? In it, a private individual has purchased the US aircraft carrier Enterprise, and as it moves around the Pacific unpowered (moved just by the currents), people from the western side of the ocean will often come out with boats (like, little crap dinghies) and rafts and barrels and boxes (think Cuban refugees) to get onto the Enterprise, or latch on to it, to the point of whole communities and miniature cities connected to it, along with old oil tankers and such. I think this would make for an interesting example. Bruce Sterling had a book featuring a similar setting, Globalnet maybe? It also had some interesting surveilance cameras built into sunglasses. > > **** > Incorporate executive's paying a lot for a > well-crafted Poseidon wood boat.(or for real excess, > one of imported earth-woods) > ** > Hehehe... a hollowed-out redwood. There ya go. > I was thinking of out-riggers and catamarans, both low tech, and modern hight-tech racing jobs. Check out the egg-beater sails some people use these days, I think some of them use wind energy to run on board generators and such as well as propelling the boat. > --Charles > > -------------------------------------------------------------------- > Mail2Web - Check your email from the web at > http://www.mail2web.com/ . > > *************************************************************************** > To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.ient.com > with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. > > *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.ient.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Heivilin, Jim [banzai@missouri.edu] Sent: Friday, April 27, 2001 2:20 PM To: 'blue_planet@lists.ient.com' Subject: RE: RE: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - Deckplans > -----Original Message----- > From: chalz@earthlink.net [mailto:chalz@earthlink.net] > Subject: RE: RE: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - Deckplans > **** > They all have helipads - today we use helicopters a > favourite, solar-powered airships? > ** > Personally, I don't see why not. It never did occur to > me, though, not to see helicopters in the books. I would > think, in my own opinion, that helicopters could be more fuel > efficient for heavy-lift transport than VTOLs. > On the contrary, although I don't have any numbers at the tip of my fingers, helicopters are one of the most fuel inefficient aircraft currently in use. There is also a top speed imposed on rotary wing flight by a phenomena called Retreating Blade Stall (send me a private email if you'd like a rough description of this). IIRC this is currently about 280 mph. When all or some of the lift can be provided by lifting surfaces (wings, stabilators, empennage, etc) then the amount of lift necessary from rotors (or props in the case of Osprey type VTOL aircraft) then fuel efficiency would increase. Think of it like this. X amount of force is produced by the rotors. When the vector of this force is straight up then all of this is lift. In order for a helicopter to move forward, this vector must be tilted in the desired direction of flight. Thus the vector now contains some vertical portion (acting as lift) and some horizontal portion (acting as thrust). So as long as the total vector remains the same then the resulting lift or thrust would be less than if the vector were applied *entirely* as lift or thrust. With a fixed wing aircraft the engine provides thrust. A by-product of the thrust is airflow over the wing (or other airfoil) which produces lift. > Aside from that, recent history tends to show us that > VTOLs are not very stable right now. It seems to require a > pretty high amount of training, attention, and digital > computation to keep everything running smoothly. The > Harrier, for instance. > While this is true, it's true because any hovering flight requires close attention to detail. So it's true of a vtol aircraft but it's also just as true of a helicopter. And once a vtol transitions to horizontal flight it more closely resembles a fixed wing aircraft in all respects including the amount of attention it requires to fly. With a helicopter it doesn't require as much attention to detail in horizontal flight as it does while hovering, it does require more than a fixed wing aircraft. The best analogy I ever heard of hovering a helicopter was this; place a marble on a wooden floor. Now put a beach ball on top of the marble. Then stand on top of the beach ball and make sure you and the beach ball don't touch the floor. > Also, jet-oriented vehicles would > typically be faster, if that's what you're interested in. > The main attraction of jet powered aircraft is fuel efficiency and ease of maintenance. There aren't *nearly* as many moving parts in a turbine engine as in a reciprocating engine. And engine thrust can directly be converted into aircraft thrust (or at least converted more efficiently than a gas engine driving a propeller). > Aside from that, VTOLs are just plain waycool ;) > True. Very true. > I dig big things like that. Like giant dirigibles. You > have no idea how much I'd love to see those flying overhead > more than just the Goodyear blimp. I recall mention in ... > The main reason you don't see many more lighter than air aircraft is because they aren't very efficient in anything they do. I have read of one valid application that makes sense to me. In Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars books they are used because the early Martian atmosphere has too low a pressure to support any other type of aircraft and travel in LTA airships is *much* faster than ground travel. > Who's built the first Poseidon aircraft carrier? I can > imagine Gendiver wanting one off the Sierra Nuenva > ** > You'd have to have some serious ability to move, or some > serious stability to be able to survive the year-long > cyclonics that pop up. > One of the most significant arguments *against* aircraft carriers is that you have all your eggs in a single basket. It makes a huge (and very lucrative) target. If you read Tom Clancy's "Red Storm Rising" you can get an idea of what a beyond horizon surface-to-surface guided missile attack might be like on an aircraft carrier. And ten squadrons of launch aircraft along with hundreds of SSMs is *much* cheaper to build than one aircraft carrier with it's attending aircraft and support vessels. Thus the rise of the vtol carriers. Smaller, cheaper, faster platforms to launch shorter ranged aircraft with nearly as much punch as those launched from the larger, more vulnerable carrier. To lend a *slight* big of credibility to my statements let me point out I have a degree in Aero/Astro Engineering and I spend some six months at the Army's ORWAC (Officer's Rotary Wing Aviator Course - flight school by any other name) at Fort Rucker trying to learn to fly helicopters. Jim *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.ient.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Heivilin, Jim [banzai@missouri.edu] Sent: Friday, April 27, 2001 2:28 PM To: 'blue_planet@lists.ient.com' Subject: RE: RE: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - Deckplans > -----Original Message----- > From: David R. Crowell [mailto:gpfarm-dave@northnet.org] > Subject: Re: RE: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - Deckplans > Certainly Tilt-rotors such as Osprey seem to have a long road > ahead of them. It is quite possible that helicopters and > fixed wing conventional aircraft are in use on Posiedon, > just didn't make it into the game books because the > tech isn't "kewl" enough. What say you Jim and Greg? > That particular aspect (coolness, I refuse to acknowledge the letters 'kewl' as a 'word' much less use it) never entered *my* mind. I can't speak for Jeff or Greg. See my previous post on why I think the use of helicopters would fade out within the next 200 years or so. Oh, one other aspect which slipped my mind in the previous post. Maintenance. Current helicopters require 10 times the number of hours to maintain than a similar fixed wing aircraft. While vtols and tilt-rotors (such as the Osprey) will require more than fixed wing, I suspect they won't require *nearly* the amount of maintenance a helicopter would. > Think bigger, think rigid craft, Think Zeppelin! I know I will be > including airships in my game, they are just too good a > technology not to include, cheap, energy efficient, just slow is all. > Not to discourage anyone from adding anything they like to their games, let me just ask a question. What do you suppose would happen to your airship during a cyclone? Or a Noah? Jim Jim Heivilin, System Administrator IAT Services, Open Systems Team University of Missouri at Columbia mailto:banzai@missouri.edu, 573-884-3898 *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.ient.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: William Timmins [wtimmins@hotmail.com] Sent: Friday, April 27, 2001 2:39 PM To: blue_planet@lists.ient.com Subject: RE: RE: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - Deckplans >From: "Heivilin, Jim" >To lend a *slight* big of credibility to my statements let me point out I >have a degree in Aero/Astro Engineering and I spend some six months at the >Army's ORWAC (Officer's Rotary Wing Aviator Course - flight school by any >other name) at Fort Rucker trying to learn to fly helicopters. > >Jim I'd be curious what your opinion of these 'skycars' is? http://www.moller.com/skycar/ -=Will _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.ient.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Troy Gustavel [troy_nevermore@yahoo.com] Sent: Friday, April 27, 2001 2:53 PM To: blue_planet@lists.ient.com Subject: [BLUE PLANET] - LTA airships Jim, in you previous post you comment on the inefficiency of airships. In what way? with your background I assume you know what your talking about, but everything I have ever read about zepplins has indicated that they were and still are, extremely efficient aircraft, just slow and somewhat fragile. from where do you know otherwise? and how did zepplins and dirigibles handle storms in the 30's? Poseiden has fiercer storms, but also more advanced materials technolgy. ===== Troy Gustavel 5825 Bolender Rd. Akron, OH 44319 (330)882 5468 Troy_Nevermore@Yahoo.com "Once upon a midnight dreary..." __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Auctions - buy the things you want at great prices http://auctions.yahoo.com/ *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.ient.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Dom Twist [thazar@globalnet.co.uk] Sent: Friday, April 27, 2001 3:21 PM To: blue_planet@lists.ient.com Subject: Re: RE: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - Deckplans Jim> More on Native built wooden boats later (My Dad Wooden Boat Builder and Sci-Fi nut and I are currently debating the issue off-line). However I would think the biggest requirement would be resistance to fast fungus. If their were hardwoods that resisted FF or could be easily treated to do so....... Polynesian style craft would be the rule, rather than European Clinker built planked boats...beautiful as they are. Things that can be disasenbeled quickly in the path of a Noah storm or rebuilt repaired easily. AirCraft Carriers:- I think the only people would be able to get away with this are the GEO. LPO (Low Poseidon Orbit) is Dominated by the GEO Marines Heavy Cav. I'm sure that their Gargoyle Drop Ships can be loaded out in a Anti-Ship configuration. Hell the 'Kinetic Harpoon' idea used in Peter F Hamilton's Night's Dawn Triology:- Drop stuff on it from orbit. (If you havent read the Nights Dawn Trilogy...go do so...boosted mercs, byzantine politics and alliances and the frontier world of Lalonde in the first book, although no water world, gives a lot of cool ideas for a 'high tech/Low Tech' world and the effects of Genetic Modification) Any body who aint the GEO knows that their Flatop is just a sitting duck waiting for the hammer to fall....and if you ever REALLY mess with the GEO....it will. The idea of V/STOL carriers simmilar to those the Royal Navy, Spain and a few other countries use now would be cheaper..........but :- In the Falklands/Malvinas conflict the RN used a merchant vessel with lots of deck space 'The Atlantic Conveyor' (from memory) as a parking spot for Helo's and Harriers.........and the US Navy has plans drawn up for a 'Sea Supremacy Ship'...this was a standard container carrier vessel...bolt a deck onto the top layer of containers...make some of those containers rather specalised and Hey Presto...you can take Helo's and VTOL fighters along with the huge merchant convoys that a NATO v Warsaw Pact War would have needed. Its a retread of the WWII escort carrier but done on the cheap. Third Idea:- Those Huge submersible's mentioned in the fluid Mechs (Benthic Universe class) as Sub Carriers.......if they surface to off load cargo...no reason they couldnt launch/recover Jumpcraft/VTOL's. The water gives Armour against arial attack and a certain degree of concealment....again read Tom Clancy (Red October, Red Storm Rising and a host of others) if you cant be bothered to go hardcore on the subject. Of course something that big is going to be easier to spot from orbit than a smaller sub'. DomT(ex Marine Hat) *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.ient.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Dom Twist [thazar@globalnet.co.uk] Sent: Friday, April 27, 2001 3:34 PM To: blue_planet@lists.ient.com Subject: Re: RE: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - Deckplans Jim>The main attraction of jet powered aircraft is fuel efficiency and ease of maintenance. I couldnt agree more. Helo's and Tilt rotors (which are complicated Helo at least in part) and the most insane, complicated mech' devices. We make them work because we have no alternative. But mechanical failure is going to occur sooner or later with out fanatical maintence....and operating Helo's in a Marine enviroment is pretty much a reserve of the Military or people willing to go to the same lengths (As part of my job I occasionaly get flown to some Islands of the Coast of the UK....the aircarft are civilian........but the only real difference is the paint work, aircraft is mil spec, air and ground crew are ex-millitary and work to the same standards etc). Helo's are just crashes waiting to happen. A controled crash is called 'a normal landing'. Given the existance of Jump craft etc they would be preferable. DomT ps I love the idea of LTA travel....but impatience and weather makes it hard to see on Poiseidon *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.ient.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Heivilin, Jim [banzai@missouri.edu] Sent: Friday, April 27, 2001 3:31 PM To: 'blue_planet@lists.ient.com' Subject: RE: [BLUE PLANET] - Old Article > -----Original Message----- > Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2001 14:41:08 -0600 > Should Play Roleplaying Games > > Thought this link might be of interest, especially to those > of you who have been following my homeschooler campaign. > > 10 Reasons Kids Should Play Roleplaying Games > http://www.themestream.com/gspd_browse/reg/content.gsp?c_id=335196&pid=002301000001 Scott Kurtz has a list on his website for PvP (incidentally a good comic for gamers) although I don't know how closely it follows the old one. http://www.pvponline.com/rants_dd.php3 (okay, this one only has 5 reasons) Jim *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.ient.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: thom [thomd@blarg.net] Sent: Friday, April 27, 2001 5:23 PM To: blue_planet@lists.ient.com Subject: [BLUE PLANET] - Helicopters of the future? At 01:34 4/27/01, Dom wrote: >Helo's are just crashes waiting to happen. A controled crash >is called 'a normal landing'. > >Given the existance of Jump craft etc they would be preferable. Hi all! Just joined the list, and in the middle of this discussion, but I look at the "sixth day" type craft piloted by Ahnold as being more inline with Earth 2199. --Thom *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.ient.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Chad Chirhart [seahawk@visi.com] Sent: Friday, April 27, 2001 5:34 PM To: blue_planet@lists.ient.com Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - Just got Natural Selection On Wed, 25 Apr 2001 Ml10@aol.com wrote: > I got Natural Selection earlier today. I just got my copy this wednesday and I have the same review, Wow! I've been reading through the first section and I've already gotten some cool ideas. I saw the writeup for Grendels and now I want to run a campaign shortly after abandonment where the grendel population explodes and threatens a newly formed colony. ;-) I'm also glad I had the store I shop at put one on hold, I went in to pick it up and they said it was selling like crazy. Guess I'm not the only fan in Minnesota. Must read more, later all. Chad Chirhart seahawk@visi.com *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.ient.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Chad Chirhart [seahawk@visi.com] Sent: Friday, April 27, 2001 5:43 PM To: 'blue_planet@lists.ient.com' Subject: RE: RE: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - Deckplans On Fri, 27 Apr 2001, Heivilin, Jim wrote: > What do you suppose would happen to your airship during a cyclone? Or a > Noah? Hmmm... that would be one interesting adventure, as well as a ride! Wouldn't it be possible to use materials to lift it up above most non-extreme weather systems? I remember seeing those articles about people trying to float around the globe and being up so high they'd need to pump in oxygen from tanks. Course it'd still be easier having an aircraft that could just land and get the hell out of the way, but maybe you could sell tickets to all the Poseidon rich. Chad Chirhart seahawk@visi.com *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.ient.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Corax@aol.com Sent: Friday, April 27, 2001 8:14 PM To: blue_planet@lists.ient.com Subject: Re: RE: RE: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - Deckplans I be leave this was mentioned before, but check out www.ussubs.com not full deckplans but the beginnings *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.ient.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: David R. Crowell [gpfarm-dave@northnet.org] Sent: Friday, April 27, 2001 8:21 PM To: blue_planet@lists.ient.com Subject: [BLUE PLANET] - LTA etc. ----- Original Message ----- From: Heivilin, Jim > > > That particular aspect (coolness, I refuse to acknowledge the letters 'kewl' > as a 'word' much less use it) never entered *my* mind. I can't speak for > Jeff or Greg. Jim, my apologies to you and the rest of the list for my use of "that word". My overtired brain, crossed the BP list with other games lists I am on. Those that argue for new game mechanics and new technologies regardless of their actual utility, based on their ability to provide something new and different. Had I considered for a moment I would have realized that this is BP and if there aren't helicopters, there is a valid reason for it. See my previous post on why I think the use of helicopters > would fade out within the next 200 years or so. > If the numbers are in favour of jumpcraft, I see no reason for helicopters to persist after jumpcraft become widely available, other than stubborn hanging on to old, less efficient technologies. As for the flight control problem that some one mentioned for VTOL and helicopters, I am willing to posit improved computer assisted piloting. > > > > Think bigger, think rigid craft, Think Zeppelin! I know I will be > > including airships in my game, they are just too good a > > technology not to include, cheap, energy efficient, just slow is all. > > > Not to discourage anyone from adding anything they like to their games, let > me just ask a question. > > What do you suppose would happen to your airship during a cyclone? Or a > Noah? Those of course make travel of any sort risky at best in certain seasons but I see your point. Crumpled airship. I was thinking of luxury passenger travel. Similar to the role they played here on Earth. There are proposals to bring them back into trans-Atlantic passenger service. > > Jim > > Jim Heivilin, System Administrator > IAT Services, Open Systems Team > University of Missouri at Columbia > mailto:banzai@missouri.edu, 573-884-3898 > > *************************************************************************** > To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.ient.com > with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. > > *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.ient.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message.