[TML] Noncanonical TU 3D.

[Jerry W Barrington]

On 1/4/08 4:33 AM, "Timothy Little" <tim at little-possums.net> wrote:

> On Fri, Jan 04, 2008 at 03:25:58AM -0500, Jerry W Barrington wrote:
>> One question: why can't a ship carry enough fuel to make it to
>> Wolf 359 in 2 jumps?  That would get around that limit.
> 
> It might take more than 50% of the volume of the ship to make a jump
> with the early drives.  There are ways around that problem with a
> multi-stage ship, but I could see that getting extraordinarily
> expensive.

Drop tanks can add a jump to anything though.  :)

> Though it should be possible to find a large cometary body in deep
> space from which to refuel.  There should be billions out there, and
> by then sensors should be good enough to find one.  Even if you have
> to detonate a huge nuclear flashbulb in the middle of deep space and
> keep your sensors peeled for echoes, you only need to succeed once.

Yup.  I can see a major project to do this while work proceeds on better
jump drives.  It only takes 1 exploration ship, so it should be pretty cheap
compared to drive research.  (This is one of my pet peeves with the OTU.)