Re: New Ships (tugs, bases, etc.)

Dougal "Don't call me Bigby" Beilby wrote:

[Lots of neat stuff about ships/bases/helms!]

OK, here are my comments:

>I envisage two major versions, one a ship in the 100 ton range to be used

Cool ... it would make a good place for spacefaring merchants (dohwar,
even?),
miners, etc. ... or even people who just wanted a nice miltary base -
this allows ships to be more maximized for combat if you have one of these
guys nearby with barracks, kitchens, R&R facilities, etc.

>The second varient would be large enough to allow the docking of even the
>largest ships.

This is also a cool idea.  I think the use of tugboats, rather than a
super-helm would be a good idea, else you'll have _someone_ trying to
pump it up with more weapons than a Dwarven Citadel and have it fly
around.... :)  Also, this thing wouldn't really need to be cylindrical,
although I can see the use of having it so (orienting yourself if
your ship is damaged or depowered is a lot easier if you can choose
your own "down").

>For both of these vessels, having something bigger than them come into
>contact and causing a gravity shift would be disasterious.

Well, since the "small" one is about 100 tons, larger objects just
wouldn't bee too frequent.  :)  Just have one or two of the tugs
nearby to warn away Citadels from coming too close!

>Though for the bigger version, that might have to be the Spelljammer,

Yah, and if the Spelljammer is trying to land on you, you have other
things to worry about that your gravity....

>A major tactical helm would be a helm cabable of luging around 100 tons or
>more of ship, but only at tactical speeds.  i.e. lots cheaper hopefully

Ooooh, I like this.  There's something like this in the Rhyme (or the
Sphaera Tempora) which only allows tactical speed, but giving it that
high weight allowance is cool.  How about to counter the high weight
allowance (and keep the cost down), have the helm have a limitation
of about 3 SR (this also keeps these huge objects from becoming
Asteroids of Death (tm)).

>This "ship" would be little more than a strap on minor tactical helm,
>...They would have a pair of main manipulator arms, that would move with
>the wearers arms, and sockets for special purpose devices, such as magical
>cutting and sealing/welding devices.

Very cool, IMO.  Like those little Spelljamming seeds in the SJ MC 2,
but you can actually _do_ stuff with them!  Hey, and they'd be good for
carrying messages back & forth from the ground to space (since they are
so bloody small, they be almost impossible to see!).

Very good work, Dougal!  (as you can tell by the number of !'s I'm using
in my reply...)
--
Sean K Reynolds   a.k.a. Veggie Boy  skreyn@??????.com  skreyn@???.com
"You think you're so smart, but I've seen you naked,
"I'll probably see you naked again." 'Blame it on me', BareNaked Ladies