GURPS Space: Stardrives

[Diomedes]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Incidentally, I think this thread is going about the problem slightly backwards. We should start with discussing what features a plot-useful stardrive has, and then proceed from there.

Indeed.

I would say that useful plot features for a stardrive include:[list][*]Permits smuggling[*]Permits piracy, preferably including boarding actions

Smuggling requires the ability to go "off the trail" on routes the Navy doesn't patrol – so no point-to-point. It also requires the ability to get contraband down to the planet without getting caught, which is the real bottleneck, no mater what stardrive you use.
Piracy requires that the legitimate trade use those same unpatrolled routes, or a navy that is seriously under-resourced. Boarding actions aren't really affected by stardrive, unless you want them to actually occur in FTL.

[list][*]Is slow enough to keep events somewhat isolated -- PCs should be days or weeks from civilization, not minutes or hours.[*]Conveniently available on inexpensive, PC-scale ships.

Both of these are very good to have.

• On the opposite end of things, something keeps the interstellar population limited.

Realistically, it takes an awfully long time to grow interstellar colonies, unless you assume population growth rates will be considerably larger than they are now. Do we really need a limit?