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Old 02-15-2018, 02:36 PM   #65
kreios
 
Join Date: Jul 2013
Default Re: [Blog] n-Body Politics

Quote:
Originally Posted by Humabout View Post
[snip calculations]
Interesting point, although I am wondering whether you actually need ranging pings - you probably can get a fairly decent fix just by using passive sensors (or just ping several times per second; modern LIDARs like the high-end Velodynes already produce a few hundred thousand datapoints per second (granted, that's 360°). And, once you have the distance to the target determined to within a kilometre or so, do you actually lose much efficiency compared to a centimetre-exact distance?

Of course, the longest-range lasers I have have a 1/2d-range of 20,000 kilometres, meaning we have times measured on the order of 0.1 seconds.

Quote:
(2) Computer Dodging.
This is very hardware and software dependent. Currently, (by similar unvetted Google search), computers are alleged to have comparable reaction times as humans, but you don't have TL 8 computers. You have high-TL sci-fi computers, so can probably set this arbitrarily fast, meaning a computer can always attempt to dodge a laser weapon.
A computer, even today, should be able to get you some sort of dodging software within milliseconds. Assuming you have recognized a laser through some sort of heat detection, you should be able to propagate that information directly to the RCS and/or drive systems. I could probably write something like that today (if you give me the interface) that's limited by engine speed, not computation power.

Quote:
[EDIT]
And having written all of that, I realize that it ignores the "Dodge includes moving erratically to avoid being hit" thing. It does, however, provide a hard line where Dodge no longer can represent an actual reaction to an attack. If you don't mind the added complication, you could apply Restricted Dodge Against Firearms from Tactical Shooting, p. 17 with awareness determined by range to target as shown above. And those range thresholds can be pre-calculated for ships, so you don't have to do them on the fly.
That's a good idea. I'll have to see whether it adds anything to the game itself except for additional rolls, but it would be a start. Hm, I have the feeling I'm Tactical Shooting will soon become my second-most referred-to book...



Quote:
Originally Posted by doctorevilbrain View Post
A Human being is 2 meters tall?! Where the National Basketball Association? It ignores the fact that each sex has different average heights. Different countries have different average heights too. I don't understand why somebody would say that without acknowledging the difference.
As Humabout noted, it's a Fermi estimate, meaning I'm actually happy if I'm within 50% or so of the target. You'll note that the other values are average human speed (6m/s, which is higher than GURPS average of 5y/s = 4.5m/s), a human and a spacecraft having the same aspect ratio (I don't even know what the aspect ratio of a spacecraft is, maybe 5:1?), and even G at 10m/s.

But, looking at the relation between height and speed, we have 3s (original estimate), 2.7s (165cm for median female height from wikipedia plus 5y/s from GURPS average), and 2.57s (ditto for male height). Meaning I'm still within less than 20% and, in my opinion, perfectly fine.

Remember - everything's an abstraction, and in the end, what counts is getting rules that aren't too disbelief-inducing.
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