Sundog

Re: Shoule NASA be nixed? That's actually not a good reason for going to the moon, H-Man. He3 has great potential, but it's a potential we literally cannot take advantage of. We can, just barely, make energy out of Deutrium-Tritium Fusion. He3 Fusion is at least thirty years away; I don't think it will happen in my lifetime. NASA actually does a good job when you consider the horrible restrictions it's under. It has NO guaranteed funding - it exists from budget to budget, every project it starts subject to congressional whim. Give NASA a guaranteed budget and I believe you'd see wonders.

Re: The answer to the most important question in Space Sci-Fi Doubt it. Might even be harmful - increased pressure in the arteries. According to the article, blood circulation stops pretty fast. The increased oxygen content in the blood probably wouldn't be enough to keep the brain operating since it would just be what's in the brain when the decompression incident occurred.

Re: Cool Guns for your Games All this is undoubtedly true if you actually score a direct hit. However, most missiles have a circular probability error radius in the meters (more like tens of meters for long range shots). You can mitigate that by using JDAM systems or keeping a human in the loop, but Sidewinders are fire-and-forget. Will that small warhead kill the antenna if it lands three meters to the left of the target?

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? A local band - Birds of Tokyo - Wild at Heart

Re: Cool Guns for your Games

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Celebrating the death of Bin Laden- so Manowar's Black Wind Fire and Steel

Re: Answers & Questions Q: Why don't I remember the front door, back door, thirty chickens and a rat? A: Raw Phosphorous is not a bonding agent.

Re: Answers & Questions Q: Must you keep going on about your ethical sense, mister spin doctor? A: No, not as bad as the press...probably.

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Falling Down the Mountain - INXS

Re: Answers & Questions Q: How do you know the above posters read Girl Genius? A: I'll have a McSquick.

Re: Answers & Questions Q: What was the name of that movie, the one where the guy was trying to balance out a score whilre people were shooting at him? A: The Fordham Mark Q Hyperblaster.

Re: .600 Nitro Express Revolver Or killing your shoulder when you want to fire it...

Re: Cool Guns for your Games As I understand it, while both are very effective tool blades, the Kukri's development history was driven by conbat requirements, while the Machete has never been anything but a weapon of opportunity. If I want to hack through brush, I'll take a Machete. If I want to hack through people...

Re: .600 Nitro Express Revolver Can't follow the link.

Re: The Starborn Chronicles Nice reuse of the Alien Nation tropes. In that series, George Francisco makes Detective five years after arrival (notably, though, there are hints this was an accelerated promotion for political reasons by the city). Likewise, in AN they had "Little Tencton", where most of the Newcomers (though not all - the Francisco family did not). Notably, the citizenship process had not yet been fully sorted out - Newcomers did not yet have the vote (there's an episode where that comes up in a referendum). Local police can use what requirements they choose for their police forces, but I'd not think Federal level employment (or military service) would be likely unless full citizenship provisions were in place.

Re: Cool Guns for your Games re: the Neopup: Colour me unimpressed. Nothing there that a M203 couldn't do better.

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Baker Street - Jerry Rafferty

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Toto- Africa.

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Taking Care of Business, Bachmann Turner Overdrive

Re: Answers & Questions Q: When did you know your cooking show was going off the reservation? A: Pi equals 3.

Re: Anti-matter weaponry Alternatively, you could rule that there is no way to safely contain antimatter known to your universe's civilization. I still had A-Mat weapons - anti-proton particle beams - but the weapons generated the antimatter on demand instead. (Very big guns - spinal mounts on cruisers and above).

Re: Answers & Questions Q: First, we shoot it out with the National Guard as a distraction, then a 12-K run through the swamp, until we get to the sheer cliff, freeclimb that, then slip through the Mounties' perimeter, steal their chopper, and fly to Kenya. Any questions? A: No promises, but I may be able to make it worth more than your while.

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Paradise - Icehouse "A man who never knew the meaning of forever..."

Re: Space fightercraft in RPGs. Half the range means half the time to maneuver - you reduce massively your opponent's cone of maneuver - the area where he could be when the munition reaches that zone. Thus, you need to cover, not one half, but closer to a quarter the volume of space he could be in. Plus, if you're dealing with any sort of lightspeed lag, you will have a much better idea of where he is NOW. A closer shot will ALWAYS be more likely to engage a mobile target in a space battle. Sure...if your opponent is dumb enough to not be using decoys, scramblers, jamming and every other aspect of ECM and ECCM he can get his greedy little paws on. Anything worth hitting is going to be doing all in it's power to avoid being hit, especially including anything that will degrade your missiles' lock on. And the ECM power of a ship will always be greater than that of a missile. Now, at short ranges that isn't going to be a huge problem - a ship silhouetted against space up close is going to be like a giant neon sign saying HIT ME! even if just from the heat emissions of it's life support. The trick is getting your warshots into that range while still having the fuel to pull evasives and terminal maneuvers against the active defenses and the target. To do THAT will require a powerful set of sensors to try and burn through the enemy defenses and get a clear lock-on. If you fire from too far out, you're going to waste missiles, may be not get a kill. Fighters let you have the best of both worlds - you keep your ship out at ranges where hits are unlikely, while your missiles launch from way closer. Now, it could be argued that a full-size ship would have better ECM and sensors than a little fighter, and there's some truth to that. However, that advantage disappears if you link the sensor systems of a group of fighters - can you say "synthetic aperture array"? Yup. You're going to use more fuel this way - the fuel for the fighters out and back, the fuel for the missiles. I'll make that trade for increased chance of a kill. True, it's likely not always possible. But it is something to keep in mind.

Re: Space fightercraft in RPGs.