Network's effect on turn-based strategy game
Sam Inala
satisfactorily. We're in the throes of ironing out a turn-based
(computer) strategic fantasy game. When we considered the effect
of networking however, we realized that the nature of the game
itself will change. Rather than being allowed to think carefully,
players will feel time pressure, will need to click and scroll quickly,
and be unable to examine the big picture at leisure.
Reading about a similar effect on a game mentioned in _Game
Developer Magazine_ (though they did not regard it as a negative),
I wondered whether or not we could avoid the need for real-time
and keep the turn based nature of the non-networked game.
The basic problem is that if one user decides not to end their
turn, the other is left hanging. Some possible approaches are:
1. Have a time-limit by which your turn must end.
2. Let game actions proceed slowly, though in real-time, so
that players may still interact strategically.
3. Keep the turn-based mechanism, and trust that players will
complete their turns reasonably in sync.
Has anyone else found some reasonable approach to this problem?
--
Till next time, \o/ \o/
V \o/ V email: sk...@columbia.edu
<> Sam Inala <> V
AnK
Sam Inala <sk...@columbia.edu> wrote:
>We're facing a problem which we've been unable to resolve
>satisfactorily. We're in the throes of ironing out a turn-based
>(computer) strategic fantasy game. When we considered the effect
>of networking however, we realized that the nature of the game
>itself will change. Rather than being allowed to think carefully,
>players will feel time pressure, will need to click and scroll quickly,
>and be unable to examine the big picture at leisure.
>
The approach that the MUDs use is to assign each player a number of
fatigue or movement points which are used up as the player performs
each action. If the player moves very quickly, they will eventually
have to pause and wait for real-time to catch up with them. This
sort of loose synchronization seems to work well for some types of
interaction, but requires that parts of the system be automated
with possible allowances for configuration. (Combat is an example;
most MUDs don't interact with the player for each combat action,
only for the beginninng and the end.)
PBM games like TradeWars have used the same strategy to similar
effect but need even greater automation capabilities to deal with
the correspondingly greater lag between when an even occurs for
one person, and when another will be able to react.
--
a...@best.com http://www.ank.com/resume.html
Need a quality UNIX systems programmer?
Ben Ranker
: We're facing a problem which we've been unable to resolve
: satisfactorily. We're in the throes of ironing out a turn-based
: (computer) strategic fantasy game. When we considered the effect
: of networking however, we realized that the nature of the game
: itself will change. Rather than being allowed to think carefully,
: players will feel time pressure, will need to click and scroll quickly,
: and be unable to examine the big picture at leisure.
: Reading about a similar effect on a game mentioned in _Game
: Developer Magazine_ (though they did not regard it as a negative),
: I wondered whether or not we could avoid the need for real-time
: and keep the turn based nature of the non-networked game.
: The basic problem is that if one user decides not to end their
: turn, the other is left hanging. Some possible approaches are:
: 1. Have a time-limit by which your turn must end.
: 2. Let game actions proceed slowly, though in real-time, so
: that players may still interact strategically.
: 3. Keep the turn-based mechanism, and trust that players will
: complete their turns reasonably in sync.
: Has anyone else found some reasonable approach to this problem?
Well, actually I have a game that I've been planning for quite some time
now (in my off time). I ran into a similar problem. My solution was
essentially just to leave it in real time. It kind of makes more sense if
you think about it: it IS harder to coordinate a 500-unit army than a
5-unit one. If the game reflects this by not allowing a player to spend
as much time deciding his strategy for each unit as the guy with the
small army does, then in my opinion, the game is more realistic and thus
better.
-321(aka ben ranker)
: --
HILLS DAVID DONALD
>From: b...@saucer.cc.umr.edu (Ben Ranker)
>Subject: Re: Network's effect on turn-based strategy game
>Date: 26 Sep 1995 21:04:15 GMT
>Sam Inala (sk...@labdien.cc.columbia.edu) wrote:
>: 1. Have a time-limit by which your turn must end.
>: 2. Let game actions proceed slowly, though in real-time, so
>: that players may still interact strategically.
>: 3. Keep the turn-based mechanism, and trust that players will
>: complete their turns reasonably in sync.
>: Has anyone else found some reasonable approach to this problem?
>Well, actually I have a game that I've been planning for quite some time
>now (in my off time). I ran into a similar problem. My solution was
>essentially just to leave it in real time. It kind of makes more sense if
>you think about it: it IS harder to coordinate a 500-unit army than a
>5-unit one. If the game reflects this by not allowing a player to spend
>as much time deciding his strategy for each unit as the guy with the
>small army does, then in my opinion, the game is more realistic and thus
>better.
> -321(aka ben ranker)
On that note, what about a time limit dependent upon the size of
your army. So the person with the biggest army gets a time limit, and the
person with the smaller army doesn't. This creates a "Hey, that's not
fair." But all you have to do is make the time limit very reasonable. This
also gives the advantage to having a smaller army because you can move
troops faster and then have time to think about those moves more, and the
next moves you plan to make. Which again is a little more realistic (which
you may or may not want to tell the players).
If you were to graph it, this proposed time limit would probably not
be able to be of constant slope when plotted against the amount of troops,
but probably more of a parabola.
Anyway, sorry, to babble at you like that, but that seems like a
viable (if more comlicated) solution to me. Maybe I'll write a post
sometime concerning the need for reality, and why many people seem to want
to base all war-type games on historical events. Someone remind me.
Dave
Mark S. Wyman
>b...@saucer.cc.umr.edu (Ben Ranker) writes:
>>Sam Inala (sk...@labdien.cc.columbia.edu) wrote:
>>: We're facing a problem which we've been unable to resolve
>>: satisfactorily. We're in the throes of ironing out a turn-based
>>: (computer) strategic fantasy game. When we considered the effect
>>: of networking however, we realized that the nature of the game
>>: itself will change. Rather than being allowed to think carefully,
>>: players will feel time pressure, will need to click and scroll quickly,
>>: and be unable to examine the big picture at leisure.
>>: Reading about a similar effect on a game mentioned in _Game
>>: Developer Magazine_ (though they did not regard it as a negative),
>>: I wondered whether or not we could avoid the need for real-time
>>: and keep the turn based nature of the non-networked game.
>>: The basic problem is that if one user decides not to end their
>>: turn, the other is left hanging. Some possible approaches are:
>>: 1. Have a time-limit by which your turn must end.
>>: 2. Let game actions proceed slowly, though in real-time, so
>>: that players may still interact strategically.
>>: 3. Keep the turn-based mechanism, and trust that players will
>>: complete their turns reasonably in sync.
>>: Has anyone else found some reasonable approach to this problem?
>>Well, actually I have a game that I've been planning for quite some time
>>now (in my off time). I ran into a similar problem. My solution was
>>essentially just to leave it in real time. It kind of makes more sense if
>>you think about it: it IS harder to coordinate a 500-unit army than a
>>5-unit one. If the game reflects this by not allowing a player to spend
>>as much time deciding his strategy for each unit as the guy with the
>>small army does, then in my opinion, the game is more realistic and thus
>>better.
>> -321(aka ben ranker)
>I think the idea of "punishing" the player for having a large number of units
>is not especially rewarding. Games like Dune II and Warcraft in particular
>are made difficulty when you attempt to coordinate an attack from a number of
>directions or a large number of units. Whereas in real life, it is much easier
>to plan a coordinated attack, because of the chain-of-command has already resolved
>most of the communication and coordination problems. If you really want to keep
>realtime activity, you must facilitate this kind of coordination (By grouping smaller
>units together, having units make tactical decisions themselves and so forth), to allow
>the player the kind of overall strategic picture. Ideally, they should be able to reduce
>their decision making to issues like "How should I distrubute my force strength?"
>and "What points should I attack?" rather than fiddling around with individual unit tactics
>all the time. That is, I don't recommend disallowing small scale tactical decision making,
>but facilitate an environment where this is required only in special situations.
>At the basic level this should allow grouping of many units together to give them a single
>order, and providing orders which decompose into decisions that are automatically handled
>by the computer. ie Defend this area actually consists of a number of movement and attack
>commands. Units should also "remind" the player that they have been forgotten about, if
>they feel that this has happened.
>You can go AI all the way if you want.
>A.D.Venturer
I agree, the player should be able to delegate authority to subordinates.
You could even take into account things like morale, communication problems,
loss of a HQ in the chain of command from you (the field commander) to the
unit(s) you are ordering. Take a look at Tigers on the Prowl from HPS to
get a good idea of delegating command and simulating command and control.
Its sequel Panthers in the Shadows is supposed to be even better.
Now, back to the original question. Personally I do not think having
one player wait while another one is finishing his turn orders is a big
minus. Thats what turn based wargaming is. If you want a battle of
reflexes then do a networked real time wargame. Me, I would design the
game so both players enter their commands for that turn and then each
person presses the "Finished Turn" button or whatever. This would require
one machine to be the server who processes its user's inputs from the mouse.
keyboard etc, as well as receiving the other user's inputs via the network.
With this model everyone can order their troops at the same time minimizing
the wait time. When everyone has pressed "Finish turn" and the server has
received all the players inputs (locally or across the network), the server
would then process the turn (initiatve, movement, firing, etc) and download
the results to each user for playback.
Mark
Moo the Cow
Ben Ranker <b...@saucer.cc.umr.edu> wrote:
>
>The problem with this method is: What happens when you have 10 troops and
>I have 1000? My turns would take significantly longer than yours, and you
>would eventually become annoyed (or at least bored). I rather like (sorry,
>forgot the name of the last poster)'s idea of issuing general orders
>("defend this bridge"), and having a predefined (though modifiable at any
>time) set of commands associated with that ("stay at the bridge, but far
>enough apart as to view maximum area, and attack anything that comes in
>sight", or whatever). Actually I was thinking (before this suggestion and
>on a different wargame idea) of making the players delegate very general
>commands to various aides, giving players very little direct control (a la
>medieval kings: tell war minister to attack country X, tell baron Y to
>produce more iron, etc). Of course, exactly how (or, for that matter IF)
>they do this is determined by the computer.
> -321(aka ben)
What I'm working on takes very much this approach -- you can create,
in the same way as normal troops, officers who can command other
troops, and officers who command them, so ideally the number of orders
issued stays constant as the number of troops affected increases.
The reason is that I want players to not just run a war, but a whole
kingdom, and far from plotin where each house should go, they ought to
be able to create an administrator who can be ordered "Go <there> and
build a village.." and an officer to accompany him to "Order all the
soldiers to come <here>." -- that way you get reinforcments simply
arriving at the capital. But you can still go down and issue orders to
each person individually too, to "fine tune" things.
I'm thinking of letting the players create their own orders during the
game, so you can have custom ones on the menus too, but the language
for creating orders currently consists of a stream of hex digits..
--------------------------------------------+---------------------------------
"It's not a personality.. it's a bulldozer." | Which .INI file do you want to
Keith Lucas -- sill...@wardrobe.demon.co.uk.| reconfigure today (TM) ?
FL,HM,BV,PA-- DU,FS,TO,BO- TR+ SP,CA,TC++ +---------------------------------
AQ,PI+++ #++++ S++ LS+ Hr F653 YB73m | No PGP, No HTTP, Just Me !!
--------------------------------------------+---------------------------------
David Mercer
> What I'm working on takes very much this approach -- you can create,
> in the same way as normal troops, officers who can command other
> troops, and officers who command them, so ideally the number of orders
> issued stays constant as the number of troops affected increases.
>
> The reason is that I want players to not just run a war, but a whole
> kingdom, and far from plotin where each house should go, they ought to
> be able to create an administrator who can be ordered "Go <there> and
> build a village.." and an officer to accompany him to "Order all the
> soldiers to come <here>." -- that way you get reinforcments simply
> arriving at the capital. But you can still go down and issue orders to
> each person individually too, to "fine tune" things.
Then Mercer's First Axiom of Game Design applies:
He will win who most finely tunes.
Consider adding limits to the number of orders you can give
in a turn, forcing hierarchical administrations.
> I'm thinking of letting the players create their own orders during the
> game, so you can have custom ones on the menus too, but the language
> for creating orders currently consists of a stream of hex digits..
That is a most interesting problem. How are you approaching
it?
Regards,
---DBM
------------------------------------------------------------
You don't find out that you haven't spent enough on defense
until you lose the war.
-- Margaret Thatcher
------------------------------------------------------------
Moo the Cow
David Mercer <dme...@us.oracle.com> wrote:
>In article <DFrMJ...@wardrobe.demon.co.uk> Moo the Cow <sill...@wardrobe.demon.co.uk> writes:
>Then Mercer's First Axiom of Game Design applies:
>
> He will win who most finely tunes.
>
>Consider adding limits to the number of orders you can give
>in a turn, forcing hierarchical administrations.
It's real-time, not turn based. That's the limit placed on players,
how long it takes them to issue orders ( click on a unit, displays
status, left click to order )
>> I'm thinking of letting the players create their own orders during the
>> game, so you can have custom ones on the menus too, but the language
>> for creating orders currently consists of a stream of hex digits..
>
>That is a most interesting problem. How are you approaching
>it?
Well the basic language the units obey is very simple, but what I want
is an order compiler that will take a typed in sentence like "Go
somewhere and harvest all the wood you can find." and when the order
is issued, the <somewhere> is resolved by the player clicking a location.
It might have to wait for version 2 tho..
ISAAC JI KUO
PETER VASSOFF <peter....@hal9k.com> wrote:
> Hmmm... Only one reply to my original posting on this topic..? Am I to
>assume that everyone is more concerned with the combat subtopic than the
>discussion of Interstellar _Strategy_ Game _Design_ ..? I won't even re-
It never made it here, at any rate. The newsfeed occasionally just
dies for a while.
> I *DO* think that the current focus of the discussion is really more
>conducive to 'fine-tuning' a game, rather than the overall design: A
>Strategy Game is *SUPPOSED* to be more than merely weapons and Combat, so
>while I certainly follow all this with *SOME* interest, everyone has
>abandoned the original thread and vein of discussion...
Actually, I don't know of many _strategy_ games which even pretend
to address the specifics of individual combat units. The most popular
strategy wargame is Axis and Allies. Does it even pretend to
explain why tank units are better at offense than defense?
>Oh... One subtopic that I've forgotten to throw out to all..
>_COLONIZATION_
> To date, I've found *NO* references to this topic - even Terrestrially.
>No figures as to manpower and finances, nor to investment levels either!
>This seems suprosing, since Australia, Africa and New Zealand - as well as
>the US - were all originally "colonies".
All examples of colonization are extremely specific to the exact
situation involved, so it's impossible to generalize much.
> Obviously, there is going to be a scale of cost related to the hostility
>of the Environment, but what costs are required HERE and NOW?!? How much
>would it 'cost' to colonize Antartica? The Moon? The Seas?
> The technologies for all of the above already exist, and I once read the
Actually, it really depends on what you mean by "colonize". If you mean
a self-sufficient colony, then we most definitely do _not_ have the
technology to colonize the Moon. The lessons of Biosphere II (the "new"
scientific version minus those people, that is) have shown us that
we simply don't know enough yet about all the things that can go wrong
to safely attempt a truly self contained artificial biosphere.
Given 5 or 10 years, we could IMHO crack it, with enough research funds.
>Nasa report on L5, but how costly is this in GAMING terms? Forget for a
>minute the psychological and socialogical _effects:_ what would be the cost
>to the USA? To the world (as a whole?)
You think that modern economists actually have a clue as to what's
really going on on a global scale?
Put simple, we don't know. The meaning to a game designer: make up
what you like.
--
_____ Isaac Kuo (isaa...@tyrell.net or isaa...@ocf.berkeley.edu)
__|_>o<_|__ Also reachable at cs41...@bit.csc.lsu.edu
/___________\
\=\>-----</=/ "On this _particular_ Thursday..."
Kujala Matti
CLIP
>Oh... One subtopic that I've forgotten to throw out to all..
>_COLONIZATION_
> To date, I've found *NO* references to this topic - even Terrestrially.
>No figures as to manpower and finances, nor to investment levels either!
>This seems suprosing, since Australia, Africa and New Zealand - as well as
>the US - were all originally "colonies".
> I'm wondering how much effort - either fiscal or human - is going to be
>required to Colonize either OUR planets or OTHER planets? Will corporations
>be able to afford this expense or is Colonization going to remain the venue
>of Governments?
Regarding companies, what would make the colonies interesting to them?
The expenses and risks are so enormous that I can't figure any reason for
colonising. Even the governments will have to have very good resons. We
could colonize mars now. But we haven't even made a manned flight to
there, simply because it costs too much.
> Obviously, there is going to be a scale of cost related to the hostility
>of the Environment, but what costs are required HERE and NOW?!? How much
>would it 'cost' to colonize Antartica? The Moon? The Seas?
> The technologies for all of the above already exist, and I once read the
>Nasa report on L5, but how costly is this in GAMING terms? Forget for a
>minute the psychological and socialogical _effects:_ what would be the cost
>to the USA? To the world (as a whole?)
> How much of the productivity of a PLANET is required to colonize
>(successfully) a new environment? Sea. snow or moon - what does the COLONY
>cost? (FORGET the travel costs for a moment..)
No reason to forget travelling costs. Any place beyond our own planet and
that will be over 90% of expenses. At least with our current technology.
Building a colony itself is not very expensive. There are research
stations at Antarctica, just add food production and there you go. If you
want colonization at bigger scale, just multiply costs. Of course, some
resources could be shared and this would reduce efforts needed for
enlarging a colony.
Considering moon, make the above air-tight and add air recycling. And
travel expenses!
If you have to develope new technology for wanted environment, it takes
time and resources.
Terraforming a planet is a whole different story.
> As you can see, comparing the resources of the USA is *NOT* comparable
>to the resources of a Multi-National Corporation or a unified WORLD!
> Then, after we consider the costs, what sort of Society is set up? A
>corporate entity would not suprise me; nor would a Military Dominated
>Democracy (ala' Switzerland or Israel). Is this a function of the Finacing
>sources, or is it dependent upon the study of Colonization Theory?
I bet financing forces, because large payments would be the reason to
go and stay there. Considering normal people, the only reason for a long
time...
> Welcome to my latest "Can Of Worms!"
Nam
>--- Pete
> Peter....@Hal9k.com
--
Ear - To make the difference.
PETER VASSOFF
I find it rather interesting that only 2 persons have replied to my post
which was intended to get this thread back on topic: only Baily and Kuo!
My thanks appreciation to both.. The rest of you still seem to think
STRATEGY is some form of TACTICAL combat..
Perhaps this is one of the reasons I don't buy games anymore: for
computers or boardgames? Of course, it could also be a lack of time to read
and play said games, but I hesitate to spend money on games nowadays..
We have people proposing MechWar (again and still); we have people
raving about Tactical combat; we have those that insist man is no longer
SOFTA and that machines and machine-intelligence shall replace him; we have
those that spit on FTL (proposing Sublight, planetary combat)..
I believe y'all should either start some new threads or get back on
track: I've seen an assortment of topics bantered about on this thread, and
the solutions and agreements approach NIL!
Fine.. We don't all need to agree, but the topic was: _INTERSTELLAR_
_STRATEGY,_ ok? Not "Mecha as Tactical Weapons", not "Mechanical
Intelligence Replaces Man" and not "Sublight now; FTL never!"
Now, as I understand the word _STRATEGY,_ the original topic meant the
BROAD, VAST SWEEP of war, economics and EMPIRE, eh? Here, we have a
multiplicity of sub-topics (I enumerated a few) and what do we discuss?
Bowling balls, fighters, Mecha and Artillery... <shesh!>
_INTERSTELLAR_ implies (at least to me!) a multiplicity of worlds,
environments, cultures, governments, economics and WAR. It implies
supplies, technologies, intel-ops and destabilization of unfriendly
governments.. They may all be human, they may not.. They may include a
number of *FACTIONS,* or they may merely be independent governments.
Together, these imply (to me) maintaining control of the most powerful
worlds in yer "sphere"; of manipulating representatives and votes;
maintaining morale and projecting an image of "all-knowing" management.. Of
doing 'good' for the 'people' (the voters?); of dammning the 'enemies' of
the people; of defending valuable real-estate and deying or damaging that of
yer enemies.. It implies KNOWING (or having a damn good idea) his limits in
technology and politics - as well as yer own..
Now, NONE of these subjects have been discussed.. Am I to assume that
the only readers here are Engineers - seeing everything as a mechanical
objet? Am I to assume that People are no longer worthy of note, nor the
things they either feel valuable, important or required?
Sorry for the lecture, but I had high hopes when this thread started,
and it seems to be turning into the playground for Physicists, Engineers and
Robo-mind folks.. LET'S GET BACK ON TRACK!
--- Pete
Peter....@Hal9k.com
"I'm Heavily Armed; Easily Irritated; and Outa' Thorazine!"
---
þ CMPQwk #1.42-R1þ UNREGISTERED EVALUATION COPY
Robert Casey
> My thanks appreciation to both.. The rest of you still seem to think
> STRATEGY is some form of TACTICAL combat..
Point taken. However, I think the strategic discussion
precipitated a tactical debate simply because those who are conducting a
strategic campaign many times have to consider the tactical quality of the
tools they implement. You won't just send a generic unit into the field.
You will instead send units of a certain makeup and capability, and the
determination of its ability sometimes boils down to looking at the
detailed structure of the unit -- how it moves, what it needs for fuel,
firing modes, ammunition, range, etc. The devil is in the details, but
sometimes the details help to convince us of what the overall battle
picture will look like.
> I believe y'all should either start some new threads or get back on
> track: I've seen an assortment of topics bantered about on this thread, and
> the solutions and agreements approach NIL!
Two good points. First, we should branch off the space combat
discussion to a new tactical forum. Maybe someone can initate this in
their next followup posting. Also, everyone on this group should try to
at least consider what someone says and followup with the mode of mutual
understanding instead of it turning into a standoff of wit and
knowledge. We won't get any answers from constant bickering.
> Together, these imply (to me) maintaining control of the most powerful
> worlds in yer "sphere"; of manipulating representatives and votes;
> maintaining morale and projecting an image of "all-knowing" management.. Of
> doing 'good' for the 'people' (the voters?); of dammning the 'enemies' of
> the people; of defending valuable real-estate and deying or damaging that of
> yer enemies.. It implies KNOWING (or having a damn good idea) his limits in
> technology and politics - as well as yer own..
*Ahem*. Note my point above on relevance of tactical consideration
in the strategic realm. Knowing the limits of your enemy can be very
much a tactical issue.
> Now, NONE of these subjects have been discussed.. Am I to assume that
> the only readers here are Engineers - seeing everything as a mechanical
> objet? Am I to assume that People are no longer worthy of note, nor the
> things they either feel valuable, important or required?
From the postings I have seen, I can assume that a lot of us are
technically-minded, so we do fall into the trap of discussing the details
of the machines and weapons of war...but we do it because it's cool and
interesting and (to many of us) it is half the fun of a wargame.
However, let's do the strategic and political gamers their due
service and keep the strategy discussions on a strategic level. Tactical
discussions which branch from the strategy threads can branch off to form
a parallel thread.
-----------------------------------------------------------;------------
Robert Casey, Data Control Technician |\
IRIS Data Management Center ..... .. .,^ /\ | \ /\ .....
1408 NE 45th St. ~ ~ ' \| ! ~~
Seattle, WA 98105 ;
------------------------------------------------------------------------
(r...@iris.washington.edu)
Robert Casey
Now, to restart the strategy thread, let's examine a point of
discussion that has been popping up lately: colonization.
It has been brought to question what motivations would prompt
colonization of planets and star systems, since from our perspective
right now, going to the stars would be so expensive that no organization
in its right mind would fund such a project. What do we have to gain
from going to the stars?
In the past, motivation came from the prospect of wealth gained
by finding unclaimed land. Owning vast tracts of land would produce food
and natural resources which would be used to trade for other goods and
services. Land was a precious commodity, so settling in new areas
usually reaped rewards to the settlers and the sponsors.
Who's to say that this motivation couldn't take place in the
future? Perhaps we will have explorers in the future equivalent to
Eriksson, Columbus, and Magellan who will find other habitable systems
where vast resources await. Knowing of these New Worlds would excite
those with the means to consider habitating them. I am sure we would
find brave, pioneering souls who would love to leave the crowded,
polluted Earth for a new home where they can start again. If there is
sufficient wealth out there to prospect, the people will go, and the
administrations will back them up, just like they have done in ages past.
If we set aside the concerns for the technical hurdles we would
have to cross for interstellar travel and colonization to be feasible
(assume we got that far technically), then we have a whole new realm of
intrigue to consider as man reaches into the unknown. It may repeat the
cycle we saw with Plymouth Rock and the Old West (which would be
interesting), or it may lead to completely new situations. Would we
contact other intelligent life? Would we make peace or war with them?
Heaven forbid, would there be slavery as a result?
Well, those are just some initial thoughts.
Nick Janow
> Perhaps we will have explorers in the future equivalent to Eriksson,
> Columbus, and Magellan who will find other habitable systems where vast
> resources await.
What "vast resources" do you have in mind? Unless you have a magic space
drive that makes interstellar shipping fast and cheap, I can't think of any
physical resources that would be worth shipping, since they'll be available
in our solar system.
--
TriTacRep2
>_COLONIZATION_
> To date, I've found *NO* references to this topic - even
Terrestrially.
>No figures as to manpower and finances, nor to investment levels either!
>This seems suprosing, since Australia, Africa and New Zealand - as well
as
>the US - were all originally "colonies".
There is a wonderful reference on this topic, and maybe on the entire
topic of Interstellar Strategy: _Interstellar Migration and the Human
Experience_ edited by Ben R. Finney and Eric M. Jones, University of
California Press, 1985, ISBN 0-520-05878-4.
It is a collection of essays on our future beyond the Earth. It covers
getting there, the possible economics of interstellar commerce, space
borne societies, the possible speciation of humanity, and is there anybody
else out there?
It does cover the topic on a STL level, with some possibility of FTL
travel, and it covers many topics besides those above. A must get book, if
you are into the future of the human race in space.
------------------------
John H. Reiher Jr.
TriTa...@aol.com
Tri Tac Systems
------------------------
These are my opinions, unless I say different.
Usually when I'm doing my Mouthpiece bit for Tri Tac Systems.
------------------------
Calvin: The more you think about things, the weirder they seem. Take this
milk. Why do we drink *cow* milk?? Who was the guy who first looked at a
cow and said "I think I'll drink whatever come out of these things when I
squeeze 'em!"?
Isn't that weird?
Hobbes: I think conversation should be kept to a minimum until afternoon.
------------------------
Stefan E. Jones
PETER VASSOFF <peter....@hal9k.com> wrote:
>
> _INTERSTELLAR_ implies (at least to me!) a multiplicity of worlds,
>environments, cultures, governments, economics and WAR. It implies
>supplies, technologies, intel-ops and destabilization of unfriendly
>governments.. They may all be human, they may not.. They may include a
>number of *FACTIONS,* or they may merely be independent governments.
>
This is the kind of game that I like. But try to find one . . . oye!
The only strategic SF game I could find in CompUSA the other day was
one where the chief weapon were thos damn giant robots. Is it just me,
or do people have an almost religious hard-on for these things? I'm
probably asking for it, but these things strike me as the . . . no,
I'd better not say it.
Some great models:
_The Sword and the Stars_, SPI.
Lots of economic and political depth. Worlds had various races, political
types and levels of development. You could conquer a world though
subversion, conquest, etc.
Illuminati PBM by (Flying Buffalo?)
Honest! This was originally supposed to be a in-depth political
simulation. The interaction of the various groups is really neat.
It would be a real challange to have to manage a empire that was
composed of a raft of political, economic, and religious/social
groups in such a way that you could ALSO compete in the larger arena
of interstellar politics.
> Now, NONE of these subjects have been discussed.. Am I to assume that
>the only readers here are Engineers - seeing everything as a mechanical
>objet? Am I to assume that People are no longer worthy of note, nor the
>things they either feel valuable, important or required?
>
The models for politics, trade, religion and such I've seen in the
current generation of computer games strikes me as shallow and silly . . .
but given that MOO, Civ, and MOM -- all wonderful games -- are essentially
war games and not stratego/political games at heart, this is understandable.
The designs for strategic games I've puttered with include stuff like
internal politics, the effects of instinctually-motivated behavior on the
behavior of populations, the effect of _history_ (past experiences in
the context of the game) on the behavior of populations, and lots of other
stuff a lot of people would find incredibly boring. So I don't talk
about it much.
Chris Crawford tried doing a few games where the depths of political and
economical conflict were explored, and he got his balls kicked in. Not
enough things blowin up.
How many people out there are interested in a depthy game? Do people want
more than token political, economic, and social factors in their games,
things that not a few people I know claim to get in the way of the
REAL action (combat, preferably with sound effects)?
TriTacRep2
down:
1. We assume that some means of getting to the stars within a person's
lifetime exists, and that it doesn't involve relativity. There is one
means, and it is accepted by many scientists today: wormholes. Not your
Star Trekian kind, but a true shortcut in space to another locale. How
these are made isn't important, what's important is the cost and resources
needed to create them.
2. Taking 1. into account, this means there is no such things as
starships. Wormholes can't be set on a planet, but could be in orbit
around or near habitable worlds and resources. So spaceships are required,
they will probably use antimatter reaction drives, and have a reaction
mass to payload mass of 4 to 1. (Fuel mass is in milligrams, all of it
antimatter.)
3. How mature is the interstellar community? Thousands of years old or
only hundreds? Widespread colonies, or only a few mature ones? Are there
aliens involved or just speciated humans? These questions need to be
answered first before we go any further.
ISAAC JI KUO
Kujala Matti <k15...@proffa.cc.tut.fi> wrote:
>In <8B40224.00E3...@hal9k.com> peter....@hal9k.com (PETER VASSOFF) writes:
>>_COLONIZATION_
[...]
>> I'm wondering how much effort - either fiscal or human - is going to be
>>required to Colonize either OUR planets or OTHER planets? Will corporations
>>be able to afford this expense or is Colonization going to remain the venue
>>of Governments?
> Regarding companies, what would make the colonies interesting to them?
>The expenses and risks are so enormous that I can't figure any reason for
>colonising. Even the governments will have to have very good resons. We
>could colonize mars now. But we haven't even made a manned flight to
>there, simply because it costs too much.
One reason is prestige and/or PR. How many governments fund high
performance automotive research? How many companies have their own
multi-million dollar Formula 1 racecar?
>Building a colony itself is not very expensive. There are research
>stations at Antarctica, just add food production and there you go. If you
The thing is, we can't just add food production. We don't know how to
create a self sustaining biosphere yet. What's more, the closest we've
ever gotten (Biosphere II) shows us that it requires a very great
volume per human, and even in the absense of humans we don't know how
to do it (Biosphere II remains in operation only with the assistance
of a huge mechanical bellows which brings in fresh air).
--
_____ Isaac Kuo (isaa...@tyrell.net or isaa...@ocf.berkeley.edu)
__|_>o<_|__ Also reachable at cs41...@bit.csc.lsu.edu
/___________\
\=\>-----</=/ "My wish is your command."
ISAAC JI KUO
>which was intended to get this thread back on topic: only Baily and Kuo!
Subthreads will happen. Netnews threads simply aren't Lamarkian.
> We have people proposing MechWar (again and still); we have people
>raving about Tactical combat; we have those that insist man is no longer
>SOFTA and that machines and machine-intelligence shall replace him; we have
>those that spit on FTL (proposing Sublight, planetary combat)..
Hey, _I_ reject the necessity of FTL. IMHO, assuming FTL is eliminating
the most fascinating and unique aspect of interstellar matters.
> _INTERSTELLAR_ implies (at least to me!) a multiplicity of worlds,
>environments, cultures, governments, economics and WAR. It implies
>supplies, technologies, intel-ops and destabilization of unfriendly
>governments.. They may all be human, they may not.. They may include a
>number of *FACTIONS,* or they may merely be independent governments.
Really, this is what is implied by "strategic". All of the factors
mentioned are perfectly applicable to historical Earth situations.
However, a strategic wargame may choose to ignore the larger political
factors and stick to a strategic war campaign with pre-defined objectives,
such as in Axis and Allies.
>Am I to assume that People are no longer worthy of note, nor the
>things they either feel valuable, important or required?
The "people" aspect isn't a popular theme in existing strategic wargames,
so why should it surprise you that we are ignoring them? When we
play a Civil War wargame, we want to be General Grant, not President
Lincoln.
The simplification to a monolithic culture unquestioningly doing the
bidding of one military leader is no more a bizarre assumption than
the unrealistic amount of information one has about one's own forces
and capabilities, not to mention the enemy's.
ISAAC JI KUO
TriTacRep2 <trita...@aol.com> wrote:
>Let's talk about strategy for Instellar Conflict by laying some rules
>down:
>1. We assume that some means of getting to the stars within a person's
>lifetime exists, and that it doesn't involve relativity. There is one
>means, and it is accepted by many scientists today: wormholes. Not your
>Star Trekian kind, but a true shortcut in space to another locale. How
>these are made isn't important, what's important is the cost and resources
>needed to create them.
How they are "made"? If that's unimportant, then really this is just
as much an SF fantasy as warp engines or hyperspace drives. It just
happens to be messing with macroscopic geometry of space-time.
In any case, even with this assumption, there's no reason to assume a
persons lifetime is limited to, say, a mere 200 years.
>2. Taking 1. into account, this means there is no such things as
>starships. Wormholes can't be set on a planet, but could be in orbit
>around or near habitable worlds and resources. So spaceships are required,
>they will probably use antimatter reaction drives, and have a reaction
>mass to payload mass of 4 to 1. (Fuel mass is in milligrams, all of it
>antimatter.)
If we postulate wormholes set within solar systems, then there is little
reason to use antimatter drives and plenty of reasons not to. Fusion
drives already would be capable of any interplanetary trip allocating
maybe 1 or 2 percent of mass to propellant, and this drive could be
safely used with little radiation effect for atmospheric landing. At
the same time, it would be several orders of magnitude more energy
efficient, making heat rejection problems, and thus the heat rejection
equipment, that much less massy.
Sunir Shah
> Considering moon, make the above air-tight and add air recycling. And
>travel expenses!
You can mine oxygen from lunar minerals (there's work in Australia pretty much done). Water is
a problem, but the mining technique uses hydrogen, so...
Wastes?
Food?
Entertainment?
Social contact?
Colonies aren't all that easy to make.
It would be interesting to see a game that involved two parts: earthside where a civilization
prepares for extraterrestrial colonization and moonside where the colony takes place. It
becomes a time juggling venture. How much time are you willing to spend to prepare the colony?
The more time you spend, the faster the colony grows. But what about the competition? Who'll
rule the moon?
Maybe this wouldn't be very fun, but it'd be interesting to *see*. (Well, the solution is a
parabola.. just figure out the parabola's max value and you're set... limited replay value).
--
Sunir Shah (ss...@intranet.on.ca)
WWW: http://intranet.on.ca/~sshah/ FidoNet: 1:241/11
BBS: The Open Fire BBS +1(613)584-1606
The Programmers' Booklist : http://intranet.on.ca/~sshah/booklist.html
Synapsis Entertainment : http://intranet.on.ca/~sshah/synapsis.html
WASTE (Wargame AI Contest): http://intranet.on.ca/~sshah/waste/waste.html
Aaron Mandelbaum
> Fine.. We don't all need to agree, but the topic was: _INTERSTELLAR_
>_STRATEGY,_ ok? Not "Mecha as Tactical Weapons", not "Mechanical
>Intelligence Replaces Man" and not "Sublight now; FTL never!"
> Now, as I understand the word _STRATEGY,_ the original topic meant the
>BROAD, VAST SWEEP of war, economics and EMPIRE, eh? Here, we have a
>multiplicity of sub-topics (I enumerated a few) and what do we discuss?
>Bowling balls, fighters, Mecha and Artillery... <shesh!>
Actually, the *original* topic was to make a *realistic* interstellar
strategy game -- no FTL, no interlinked economics or politics between far-
flung worlds because of the communication delay, etc. The discussion has
continued to focus on what combat in space would realistically be like
(although it got somewhat sidetracked into intrastellar combat details).
All the things you mentioned are unrealistic under the original assumption
(no FTL) and therefore off topic. Hope this helps. :)
--
Aaron Mandelbaum
eber...@umn.edu
>which was intended to get this thread back on topic: only Baily and Kuo!
Many of us, perhaps, have no interest in what you'd like us to talk about.
"Interstellar" is an idea few of us can honestly say we have any concept of.
You say, "flying between star systems," and "diplomacy between species."
I say, "Whatever." Won't happen for hundreds of year, if ever.
You'll have to forgive us, mere mortals that we are, but some people actually
perfer to discuss things with which we have some degree of understanding and
familiarity. Damn us.
> I believe y'all should either start some new threads or get back on
>track: I've seen an assortment of topics bantered about on this thread, and
>the solutions and agreements approach NIL!
I've already tried...INTERPLANETARY strategy game. Nobody bit. We take
what we can get.
If you're looking for us to hammer out your amazingly original galacting conquest
game, I think you should look elsewhere. Not all of us seek concrete resolution
to topics of debate, as nice as that may be...
> Now, as I understand the word _STRATEGY,_ the original topic meant the
>BROAD, VAST SWEEP of war, economics and EMPIRE, eh? Here, we have a
>multiplicity of sub-topics (I enumerated a few) and what do we discuss?
>Bowling balls, fighters, Mecha and Artillery... <shesh!>
Summarize the planet earth, its civiliazations, technology, geology and whatever
else might have some RELEVANCE to a "galactic conquest" game. Go ahead. I
challenge you. Make it one, two paragraphs at most.
If you do this, see how much is wanting. Then re-write it, but no more than
four or five paragraphs.
It'll still be FAR LESS than required to paint a halfway reasonable portrait of this
little ball of mud...
...and you're bitching at everyone to either discuss something unimaginably complex
in similar detail, and have no reservations about it? Sorry, pal, but I can
generalize fine...just not on the scale you seem to want.
Take a hike...why whine because we don't discuss only those topics you
seem to have an interest in...??
[whining] deleted
> Now, NONE of these subjects have been discussed.. Am I to assume that
>the only readers here are Engineers - seeing everything as a mechanical
>objet? Am I to assume that People are no longer worthy of note, nor the
>things they either feel valuable, important or required?
I think games that have dealt with those things exist already. Someone may want
to make another one. Good for them...I'm all for a fun wargame...but shit, let's
get serious. NONE of what you said is exactly original or especially thought-
provoking.
If you have nothing constructive to add to a thread, then be quiet...but why
bitch at us, tell everyone else to get "back on track" because perhaps no one
else wants to discuss the subtlties of politics between the rock men and bug people,
the technology differences between the kilrathi and sectaurs, the doctrinal
differences between the zentradi and the cylons...
Gimme a break...
eber...@umn.edu
>bidding of one military leader is no more a bizarre assumption than
>the unrealistic amount of information one has about one's own forces
>and capabilities, not to mention the enemy's.
Off topic, but when I see writing of this quality I feel compelled to compliment
the writer. I mean it sincerely. Excellent rebuttal.
Oh yes, and I happen to agree with you. Who'd have thunk it... :-)
PETER VASSOFF
On 11/05/95, TRITACREP2 says:
T>There is a wonderful reference on this topic, and maybe on the entire
T>topic of Interstellar Strategy: _Interstellar Migration and the Human
T>Experience_ edited by Ben R. Finney and Eric M. Jones, University of
T>California Press, 1985, ISBN 0-520-05878-4.
Thanks, John... I shall call Barnes and Noble to see about this item!
PETER VASSOFF
On 11/06/95, ISAAC JI says:
IJ>In article <8B451B5.00E3...@hal9k.com>,
IJ>PETER VASSOFF <peter....@hal9k.com> wrote:
IJ>> I find it rather interesting that only 2 persons have replied to my
IJ>post >which was intended to get this thread back on topic: only Baily
IJ>and Kuo!
IJ>Subthreads will happen. Netnews threads simply aren't Lamarkian.
Perhaps... Whaza Lemarkian..? ;-)
IJ>Hey, _I_ reject the necessity of FTL. IMHO, assuming FTL is eliminating
IJ>the most fascinating and unique aspect of interstellar matters.
Yes.. In a game spanning centuries of 'game-time' and weeks of 'real-
time'.. Personally, I am not interested in spending *all* of my recreational
time on one single game - until I retire.. I imagine that the majority of
computer-gamers would like a game of no more than 2 or 3 nights on the
average.. This is how long a _painful_ game of MOO has lasted me - when I
play after work for oh, 4 to 6 hours ;-)
Granted, a well done Solar game may well grab my attention, but I've
seen none that I'd spend money on.. I'll swap you - you write one for me,
I'll write one for you ;-)
IJ>However, a strategic wargame may choose to ignore the larger political
IJ>factors and stick to a strategic war campaign with pre-defined
IJ>objectives, such as in Axis and Allies.
Sure, and we can use a deck of cards too... I think I'll stick to
Interstellar Strategy, since I've no desire to be led off that track.. Also,
I hesitate to remind you, but supply and politics are part and parcel of a
Strategy game.. A&A depicts WW2, right? Politics were known, understand and
allowed for in that the game was 'historical' I'd imagine..
The political alignments and technological leads in an ISG are probably
going to be highly fluid until some sort of greater pattern evolves between
Factions, Races/Species.
IJ>>Am I to assume that People are no longer worthy of note, nor the
IJ>>things they either feel valuable, important or required?
IJ>The "people" aspect isn't a popular theme in existing strategic wargames,
IJ>so why should it surprise you that we are ignoring them? When we
IJ>play a Civil War wargame, we want to be General Grant, not President
IJ>Lincoln.
Again, that would be your choice of game - a matter of taste (as I've
mentioned before).. However, Poor ol' Lincoln had his hands full with those
Generals of his - half were looking for political advancement, the other
half had a tendency to drink, whore and fight like the damned..
I can imagine that a Game where you played Lincoln trying to manage a
zoo of generals, a war, Washington Politics and yer wife could be made to
entertain and fascinate - depends on the approach.
IJ>The simplification to a monolithic culture unquestioningly doing the
IJ>bidding of one military leader is no more a bizarre assumption than
IJ>the unrealistic amount of information one has about one's own forces
IJ>and capabilities, not to mention the enemy's.
Well, I'd certainly agree with you about both - to a degree..
Simplification for the sake of playability is acceptable, as are optional
rules that allow the terminally 'bored' to get "deep".. However, while I
agree that most games provide too much information to a player, I think the
limitation is mostly limited to non-electronic medias.. The "information
gap" and "fog of war" seem to be easily programmed features, you merely
require an electronic game. I would certainly never do away with either, but
while MOO handles the data-lack fairly well in some ways, in others it is
infuriating.. (I know I saw those ships before.. WTF did they mount for
weaponry!?)
It seems to me that Strategy Computer Games have it all over their
Boardgame counterparts in this area, and perhaps in the 'optional' area too,
I think the deficiencies are programmer related (or manager?)
The most significant drawback to Computer Simulating a Strategy Game is
the AI, and those are always a pain in the butt.. However, there no longer
seems to be any significant reason to allow game-designers to 'blow-off' the
aspects of the game that *ALLOW* the combat.
Perhaps, I'm merely off the wall here, but I *LIKE* covert operations,
spying and (occasionally) pulling one over on the voters or my opponents.
Apparently, few gamers appreciate the fact that information is as useful as
providing DISinformation. And, although I never got into the Civil War Era,
those enthusiasts know very well what the loss of FAST transport and
communications mean ;-)
I like STARS, I like FTL, I like Flashy Technology and I like to
manipulate Friend and Foe (human or otherwise ;) I dunno, but it seems we
have *SOME* commonality, but we keep finding that our favorite topics keep
conflicting. Well, I'll keep trying to reah a middle ground.. ;-)
Isaac Ji Kuo
PETER VASSOFF <peter....@hal9k.com> wrote:
>On 11/06/95, ISAAC JI says:
Actually, Isaac Kuo. It says so in my .sigs.
>IJ>>Building a colony itself is not very expensive. There are research
>IJ>>stations at Antarctica, just add food production and there you go. If
>IJ>you
>IJ>The thing is, we can't just add food production. We don't know how to
>IJ>create a self sustaining biosphere yet. What's more, the closest we've
>IJ>ever gotten (Biosphere II) shows us that it requires a very great
>IJ>volume per human, and even in the absense of humans we don't know how
>IJ>to do it (Biosphere II remains in operation only with the assistance
> We don't CARE right now how it is DONE.. What we care about is what sort
>of costs are involved for what we CAN do..
How can you determine the cost of something without at least thinking
about what that something is?
Food production is a big deal which requires a lot of resources.
Look at a nuclear submarine. It spends months--and could spend
years--underwater. It produces its own oxygen, it scrubs CO2,
it even desalinates water. What can't it do? Produce a single
ounce of food.
> Also, I know that there have been several attempts to set up small
>'model-colonies' on the ocean floor.. Granted they were not great successes,
>but how much was needed to do so..?
And Biosphere II wasn't even underwater, and it failed to support
itself, much less its half-dozen original inhabitants.
>For that matter, what was the cost on the Spacelab that held some
>Astronuts for awhile? I mean, what sort of expenses - dollars or as
>a percentage of a GNP is needed to *try* these things..? We can
>easily extrapolate and guesstimate, but some 'near-facts' would
>be nice ;-)
They'd be nothing but misleading. The cost of things fluctuates
with economical change and technological progress far too much to
make these numbers meaningful.
>
>--- Pete
> Peter....@Hal9k.com
>
> "I'm Heavily Armed; Easily Irritated; and Outa' Thorazine!"
>---
>~ CMPQwk #1.42-R1~ UNREGISTERED EVALUATION COPY
--
_____ Isaac Kuo (isaa...@tyrell.net or isaa...@OCF.berkeley.edu)
__|_>o<_|__ As the world looked on ... Earth's fate hung in balance ...
/___________\ The fight for survival ... now begins! ... FINAL BATTLE IN ...
\=\>-----</=/ TOMOBIKI-CHO!
Leon von Stauber
>
>On 11/06/95, ISAAC JI says:
>
>IJ>The thing is, we can't just add food production. We don't know how to
>IJ>create a self sustaining biosphere yet. What's more, the closest we've
>IJ>ever gotten (Biosphere II) shows us that it requires a very great
>IJ>volume per human, and even in the absense of humans we don't know how
>IJ>to do it (Biosphere II remains in operation only with the assistance
>
> We don't CARE right now how it is DONE.. What we care about is what sort
>know the cost of a 'spacesuit' or an 'EVA suit'? I can imagine several types
>of colony where every inhabitant would need to have one of their own!
>
> Also, I know that there have been several attempts to set up small
>'model-colonies' on the ocean floor.. Granted they were not great successes,
>expenses - dollars or as a percentage of a GNP is needed to *try* these
>things..? We can easily extrapolate and guesstimate, but some 'near-facts'
>would be nice ;-)
You should check out "The Millennial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in
Eight Easy Steps", by Marshall T. Savage. It's chock full of useful info
for discussions of space (and ocean) colonization. He puts forth a figure
of 8 billion dollars (US) for the construction of a self-sufficient (and
in fact, quite profitable) marine colony, using technology that could be
attained in very short order. (Much of the theoretical work has already
been done in papers going back to the '70s.)
His proposition of an electromagnetic/laser-based launch system would be
a few more billion dollars, and bubble habitats in Earth orbit would go
for a few more billion. Considering what you get, they're bargain prices.
BTW, he also talks about why spacesuits do not need to be all that complex
or costly, certainly not as they are now.
_____________________________________________________________
Leon von Stauber <leo...@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu>
http://ccwf.cc.utexas.edu/~leonvs/
University of Texas, Computation Center Consulting Services
"We have not come to save you, but you will not die in vain!"
PETER VASSOFF
On 11/07/95, EBER0021 says:
E> Many of us, perhaps, have no interest in what you'd like us to talk
E>about. "Interstellar" is an idea few of us can honestly say we have any
E>concept of. You say, "flying between star systems," and "diplomacy between
E>species." I say, "Whatever." Won't happen for hundreds of year, if
E>ever.
E> You'll have to forgive us, mere mortals that we are, but some people
E>actuall y
E>perfer to discuss things with which we have some degree of understanding
E>and familiarity. Damn us.
Well, excuse the HELL out of me.. I thought that perhaps you had enough
interest to comment on something other than tactical and unmanned topics...
What a fool I am.. If you have "no interest" I'd suggest you butt out and
start another thread; "..few of us can honestly.." GOOD! Then just say so
and drop it, no problem if the concept is overwhelming I have the same
problem - WHICH IS WHY I POSTED, ok?
___________________________________________________________________________
<EBER quotes me..>
E>> I believe y'all should either start some new threads or get back on
E>>track: I've seen an assortment of topics bantered about on this thread,
E>>and the solutions and agreements approach NIL!
E> I've already tried...INTERPLANETARY strategy game. Nobody bit. We
E>take what we can get.
Yes, I can see that - in fact I notice the subject supports that topic
quite nicely. Too bad, though.. A well made Interplanetary game could also
be amusing..
___________________________________________________________________________
E> If you're looking for us to hammer out your amazingly original
E>galacting con quest
E>game, I think you should look elsewhere. Not all of us seek concrete
E>resolutio n
E>to topics of debate, as nice as that may be...
Hmmm... A bit of conceit here, EBER.. I see nothing you've posted that
would be incorporated or modified. Nor am I asking the readers (us?) to
"hammer out" anything.
I was looking for alternate views, so that my personal involvement and
biases were somewhat minimized. My view of the conference and topic is to
gain references, insights and viewpoints of validity.
As far as 'concrete' resolutions, I'd doubt I'd find that here, nor
would it be useful since a game idea is going to elvolve - concrete is
static. I was more interested in intelligent consensus, but alas, I doubt it
exists.
OTOH, I'd say that there seem to be a number of readers that have a
handle on the SOFTA in missles and related tech, since we are seeing
discussions of AA missles from all over ;-)
___________________________________________________________________________
E>> Now, as I understand the word _STRATEGY,_ the original topic meant
E>the >BROAD, VAST SWEEP of war, economics and EMPIRE, eh? Here, we have a
E>>multiplicity of sub-topics (I enumerated a few) and what do we discuss?
E>>Bowling balls, fighters, Mecha and Artillery... <shesh!>
E> Summarize the planet earth, its civiliazations, technology, geology and
E>what ever
E>else might have some RELEVANCE to a "galactic conquest" game. Go ahead.
E>I challenge you. Make it one, two paragraphs at most.
E> If you do this, see how much is wanting. Then re-write it, but no more
E>than four or five paragraphs.
E> It'll still be FAR LESS than required to paint a halfway reasonable
E>portrait of this
E>little ball of mud...
Indeed.. And even the DOD can't simulate the system adequately. So what?
The goal in a GAME is to primarily to entertain, possibly to educate; the
goal in a simulation is to observe forces and elements and their changes to
the system. I see no incompatibility in trying to learn what forces can
provide a bit of insight and amusement.
Seems to me that your entire drive in posting is to stipulate a
Simulation (that someone else might write) that withholds most of the
*enjoyment* of play in favor of extremely fine detail and 'reality'.. I
can't imagine sitting around for hours calculating a Hohlman Orbit for the
entertainment value..
___________________________________________________________________________
E> ...and you're bitching at everyone to either discuss something
E>unimaginably complex
E>in similar detail, and have no reservations about it? Sorry, pal, but I
E>can generalize fine...just not on the scale you seem to want.
E> Take a hike...why whine because we don't discuss only those topics you
E>seem to have an interest in...??
E>[whining] deleted
Bitching? Whining? WHINING?!? Hmmm... EBER, you want to flame me - go
ahead and try via email, the entertainment value to the conference seems a
touch low.
I am terribly sorry *you* can't generalize on *my* scale, but that
sounds like a personal limitation.. Perhaps, if *YOU* are uninterested in
what I have to say or ask, you could just ignore it and move along, eh?
Part of the reason I post is *also* to seek 'like-minded' posters -
where you are certainly *NOT,* others have been noted and I've suggested
more email discussion..
"We?" What is this 'We' Kimosabi? Since when are YOU the spokesperson
for the entire conference? I saw several posters of like-minds, and replied -
to THEM.. You were busy spouting off on AI's, Bowling-balls and Unmanned
fleets of Kamikaze drones..
___________________________________________________________________________
<quoting myself deleted..>
E> I think games that have dealt with those things exist already. Someone
E>may want
E>to make another one. Good for them...I'm all for a fun wargame...but
E>shit, let 's
E>get serious. NONE of what you said is exactly original or especially
E>thought- provoking.
Hmm.. I am supposed to drop everything in search of "originality"? Now
*that* sounds intelligent.. Thought-provoking.. OK, I'm supposed to
stimulate you too?
So, what you are saying is I should abandon everything I have and like
it - in order to provide "original and Thought-provoking" posts and
games..? Now, that should make me wealthy! ;-)
Perhaps I'm confused: is this the Mensa-Conference on Alternate
Realities?
___________________________________________________________________________
E> If you have nothing constructive to add to a thread, then be
E>quiet...but why bitch at us, tell everyone else to get "back on track"
E>because perhaps no one else wants to discuss the subtlties of politics
E>between the rock men and bug pe ople,
E>the technology differences between the kilrathi and sectaurs, the
E>doctrinal differences between the zentradi and the cylons...
E> Gimme a break...
Well, golly Eber.. I thought my posts were at least as "constructive" as
your postings that press for "bowling-ball mines" and "unmanned drones". In
fact, I'd say any of the David Drake or Brin books postulate more
originality than your own..
Please excuse me for pointing out that the thread was INTERSTELLAR (not
interplanetary) and that occasionally my server misses some messages.. Also,
I grovel and beg forgiveness (NOT!) for pointing out that STRATEGY was also
mentioned in the subject line. Now, if you are so lazy as to steer the topic
into INTERPLANETARY TACTIC/OPERATIONS, then too 'effin bad ;-)
Now, I will grant you that another post points out that the thread
originally was concerned with NON-FTL scenarios, but get off your high horse
and off my back - I've seen nothing to convince me that a Sublight
Interstellar game is going to be more than a Grand-Tactical game at sublight
speeds. If you want to press your case, I'd suggest you either perform the
complex and painful task of opening an _Interplanetary_Tactics_ thread, or
cry to the admin/moderator that I am being a horrible and "bad" person.. I'm
sure that will amuse the hell out of someone with live grey-cells ;->
Nothing you've mouthed off about deters me from following this thread,
since I've already bespoken several individuals with similar interests and
perhaps able to shed light were my concept is most dark.. I'd suggest you
crawl back under your rock and continue to discuss (chortle) tactical
concerns, since you seem incapable of providing anything of use, and I doubt
anyone else appreciates your 'wit' (OK, I was at least half right ;-)
--- Pete
Peter....@Hal9k.com
"I'm Heavily Armed; Easily Irritated; and Outa' Thorazine!"
---
ţ CMPQwk #1.42-R1ţ UNREGISTERED EVALUATION COPY
PETER VASSOFF
On 11/07/95, AARON MANDELBAUM says:
AM>peter....@hal9k.com (PETER VASSOFF) writes:
AM>> Fine.. We don't all need to agree, but the topic was: _INTERSTELLAR_
AM>>_STRATEGY,_ ok? Not "Mecha as Tactical Weapons", not "Mechanical
AM>>Intelligence Replaces Man" and not "Sublight now; FTL never!"
AM>> Now, as I understand the word _STRATEGY,_ the original topic meant
AM>the >BROAD, VAST SWEEP of war, economics and EMPIRE, eh? Here, we have a
AM>>multiplicity of sub-topics (I enumerated a few) and what do we discuss?
AM>>Bowling balls, fighters, Mecha and Artillery... <shesh!>
AM>Actually, the *original* topic was to make a *realistic* interstellar
AM>strategy game -- no FTL, no interlinked economics or politics between
AM>far- flung worlds because of the communication delay, etc. The discussion
AM>has continued to focus on what combat in space would realistically be
AM>like (although it got somewhat sidetracked into intrastellar combat
AM>details).
AM>All the things you mentioned are unrealistic under the original
AM>assumption (no FTL) and therefore off topic. Hope this helps. :)
Thanks, Aaron.. I withdraw my loud confuzion ;-)
OTOH, I've noticed the side-tracking and just recently responded to a
smart-ass that seems to feel I'm whining and bitching.. Nothing is further
from the truth, but I plead for forgiveness in this misunderstanding as my
server seems to have dropped a few messages (not for the first time).
I can point you to another acquaintance interested in the topics you've
stipulated via email, if you'd like.. He won't use USENET, but his notes as
I have seen them indicate some intelligent views.
And yet... I see no reason that my comments and inquires are
unjustified.. In either case we need to consider colonies, governments and
technology.. I've read several series where FTL is gained after Man has
begun colonization at sublight.. What occurs when a Slow-ship arrives at a
successful colony? What about the sleping? or Generational crews - what are
their rights? Not strategic, but certainly amusing to consider ;-)
--- Pete
Peter....@Hal9k.com
"I'm Heavily Armed; Easily Irritated; and Outa' Thorazine!"
---
Isaac Ji Kuo
I am not a number, I am Isaac Kuo.
>IJ>Hey, _I_ reject the necessity of FTL. IMHO, assuming FTL is eliminating
>IJ>the most fascinating and unique aspect of interstellar matters.
> Yes.. In a game spanning centuries of 'game-time' and weeks of 'real-
>time'.. Personally, I am not interested in spending *all* of my recreational
>time on one single game - until I retire.. I imagine that the majority of
Civilization spans _millenia_ in game time, and yet can be played in less
time than a balanced Axis and Allies game. For that and other reasons,
I take it as a good place to look for inspiration on possible game
mechanics in an interstellar wargame.
>IJ>However, a strategic wargame may choose to ignore the larger political
>IJ>factors and stick to a strategic war campaign with pre-defined
>IJ>objectives, such as in Axis and Allies.
> Sure, and we can use a deck of cards too... I think I'll stick to
>Interstellar Strategy, since I've no desire to be led off that track.. Also,
>I hesitate to remind you, but supply and politics are part and parcel of a
>Strategy game.. A&A depicts WW2, right? Politics were known, understand and
>allowed for in that the game was 'historical' I'd imagine..
Actually, both a sense of supply lines and political dealings are
simplified away in Axis and Allies. By predefining the situation,
the players can concentrate on military tactics and strategy.
>IJ>The "people" aspect isn't a popular theme in existing strategic wargames,
>IJ>so why should it surprise you that we are ignoring them? When we
>IJ>play a Civil War wargame, we want to be General Grant, not President
>IJ>Lincoln.
> Again, that would be your choice of game - a matter of taste (as I've
>mentioned before)..
It also happens to be an aspect overwhelmingly popular in wargames.
The type of political dealings in the vast majority of wargames is
limited to dealing between players.
> I can imagine that a Game where you played Lincoln trying to manage a
>zoo of generals, a war, Washington Politics and yer wife could be made to
>entertain and fascinate - depends on the approach.
I wouldn't call such a game a strategy game. It'd be an RPG.
>IJ>The simplification to a monolithic culture unquestioningly doing the
>IJ>bidding of one military leader is no more a bizarre assumption than
>IJ>the unrealistic amount of information one has about one's own forces
>IJ>and capabilities, not to mention the enemy's.
> Well, I'd certainly agree with you about both - to a degree..
>Simplification for the sake of playability is acceptable, as are optional
>rules that allow the terminally 'bored' to get "deep".. However, while I
>agree that most games provide too much information to a player, I think the
>limitation is mostly limited to non-electronic medias.. The "information
>gap" and "fog of war" seem to be easily programmed features, you merely
>require an electronic game.
And yet a lot of us don't care to play (much less design) a computer
game. We _prefer_ the unrealistic level of information because it means
that victory tends to go with whoever is a better tactician rather than
whoever's simply luckier. If a game is going to be determined largely
by luck, I'd rather it be a short and sweet beer&pretzels game, like
Wiz War.
[...]
> The most significant drawback to Computer Simulating a Strategy Game is
>the AI, and those are always a pain in the butt.. However, there no longer
Computer wargames do not neet an AI. Computer wargames without them are
developed much faster and more easily. However, they tend to be conversions
of traditional wargames, where the real advantages of traditional wargames
show through. I wont bother trying to list them, because even the most
"silly" advantage is enough. That's the "touchy-feely" advantage, which
is enough to make normal chess sets more popular than computer versions
with animation.
> Perhaps, I'm merely off the wall here, but I *LIKE* covert operations,
>spying and (occasionally) pulling one over on the voters or my opponents.
RPG material. For better or worse, most gamers are either "wargamers"
or "RPG gamers", with many exclusively gaming in their favorite genre.
Even those of us who play both a lot tend to shun any "mixture" game.
>Apparently, few gamers appreciate the fact that information is as useful as
>providing DISinformation. And, although I never got into the Civil War Era,
>those enthusiasts know very well what the loss of FAST transport and
>communications mean ;-)
Just because we know that information is a critical aspect in RL doesn't
mean that we prefer playing a game that way. The game SFB has rules for
tactical intelligence, with which identifying the opposing ship(s) and
their armament is revealed piecemeal during combat, but they're rarely
used. Even hidden cloaking is not popular (a cloaked Romulan ship's
counter is still visible under the normal rules).
PETER VASSOFF
On 11/10/95, ISAAC JI KUO says:
___________________________________________________________________________
IJ>In article <8B4956B.00E3...@hal9k.com>,
IJ>PETER VASSOFF <peter....@hal9k.com> wrote:
IJ>>On 11/06/95, ISAAC JI says:
IJ>I am not a number, I am Isaac Kuo.
Yeah, and I apologize for the limitations of CMPQwk.. I just tried to
adjust the quoting mechanism and discovered I'd have to manually edit..
*<sigh>*
___________________________________________________________________________
<snip>
IJ>Civilization spans _millenia_ in game time, and yet can be played in less
IJ>time than a balanced Axis and Allies game. For that and other reasons,
IJ>I take it as a good place to look for inspiration on possible game
IJ>mechanics in an interstellar wargame.
Really? I can't see how the hell I can possibly compress 'game-time' to
such a degree and still allow for the inevitable rebellion and insurgency/
counter-insurgency aspects of colonization and national/factional aspects?
As I see it, if a turn spans a century or two, then the problem is
certainly well resolved in one or another ways about 100 or 150 years before
I can respond to the problem or intrigues..
___________________________________________________________________________
IJ>>IJ>However, a strategic wargame may choose to ignore the larger
IJ>>IJ>political factors and stick to a strategic war campaign with
IJ>>IJ>pre-defined objectives, such as in Axis and Allies.
<snippage...>
IJ>Actually, both a sense of supply lines and political dealings are
IJ>simplified away in Axis and Allies. By predefining the situation,
IJ>the players can concentrate on military tactics and strategy.
Well, I had no intention of having the player fully simulate a
Quartermaster or an Ambassador. However, I feel that as the leader of a
Civilization, Species or Politicoeconomic unit, you should certainly have a
modicum of control over some of those elements.. Otherwise, you simplify
away the very things that are strategic in a sense that are not directly
related to simple combat.
___________________________________________________________________________
IJ>>IJ>The "people" aspect isn't a popular theme in existing strategic
IJ>>IJ>wargames, so why should it surprise you that we are ignoring them?
IJ>>IJ>When we play a Civil War wargame, we want to be General Grant, not
IJ>>IJ>President Lincoln.
IJ>> Again, that would be your choice of game - a matter of taste (as
IJ>I've >mentioned before)..
IJ>It also happens to be an aspect overwhelmingly popular in wargames.
IJ>The type of political dealings in the vast majority of wargames is
IJ>limited to dealing between players.
IJ>> I can imagine that a Game where you played Lincoln trying to manage
IJ>a >zoo of generals, a war, Washington Politics and yer wife could be
IJ>made to >entertain and fascinate - depends on the approach.
IJ>I wouldn't call such a game a strategy game. It'd be an RPG.
An RPG? </rotfl> Look, Issac: an RPG is an *extreme* form of tactical
combat (baseline def), it forces the player to *micromanage*..
I'm not advocating that level of detail - in either the ISG I envision
or in the Lincoln-Hypothetical game mentioned above.. Instead, I envision
the player having to deal with a wide variety of issues that directly (and
some, indirectly) affect Combat, Combat Readiness and Combat Effectiveness.
___________________________________________________________________________
IJ>>IJ>The simplification to a monolithic culture unquestioningly doing the
IJ>>IJ>bidding of one military leader is no more a bizarre assumption than
IJ>>IJ>the unrealistic amount of information one has about one's own forces
IJ>>IJ>and capabilities, not to mention the enemy's.
IJ>> Well, I'd certainly agree with you about both - to a degree..
IJ>>Simplification for the sake of playability is acceptable, as are
IJ>optional >rules that allow the terminally 'bored' to get "deep"..
IJ>However, while I >agree that most games provide too much information to
IJ>a player, I think the >limitation is mostly limited to non-electronic
IJ>medias.. The "information >gap" and "fog of war" seem to be easily
IJ>programmed features, you merely >require an electronic game.
IJ>And yet a lot of us don't care to play (much less design) a computer
IJ>game. We _prefer_ the unrealistic level of information because it means
IJ>that victory tends to go with whoever is a better tactician rather than
IJ>whoever's simply luckier. If a game is going to be determined largely
IJ>by luck, I'd rather it be a short and sweet beer&pretzels game, like
IJ>Wiz War.
That's fine with me.. I have no desire to inhibit your enjoyment of any
Boardgames, but I personally lack a game group nowadays, and I'm not
inclined to go hunting one up.. I find that computers are less messy, more
compact and more willing to play during periods convenient to myself ;-)
OTOH, that *luck* you speak so lightly about is part and parcel of every
conflict in history.. Montgomery, Patton, Napolean or Alexander The Great..
Further, both of the former were as busy fighting each other for media
attention as they were the enemy - and the results reflected it, although
they are often concealed by "official" histories.. In fact, both were
blessed with troops that went above and beyond - for their COUNTRIES, more
often than for their leaders.
Is it *luck* to sift intelligence from multiple and (sometimes)
conflicting reports, or is it skill? Is it *luck* to be able to extrapolate
your opponents positions and supply-situation from previous encounters,
regardless what intelligence can determine? Is it *luck* that allows an able
commander to sense a trap or feint? Well, sometimes, sure.. But the
successful commander is either *VERY* lucky, or he is actually <gasp>
skilled!
___________________________________________________________________________
IJ>[...]
IJ>> The most significant drawback to Computer Simulating a Strategy Game
IJ>is >the AI, and those are always a pain in the butt.. However, there no
IJ>longer
IJ>Computer wargames do not neet an AI. Computer wargames without them are
IJ>developed much faster and more easily. However, they tend to be
IJ>conversions of traditional wargames, where the real advantages of
IJ>traditional wargames show through. I wont bother trying to list them,
IJ>because even the most "silly" advantage is enough. That's the
IJ>"touchy-feely" advantage, which is enough to make normal chess sets more
IJ>popular than computer versions with animation.
Well, anytime I write a program that is supposed to at *least* respond
as I would, it's an AI.. I didn't mention Neural Nets and such, but if had a
decent sample, I'd try those too.
Sure, if I write a program that requires two or more humans to swap
chairs, then I am writing an editor/moderator of gaming.. I don't currently
have two players, I've got myself (although my alter ego DOES tend to want
to get involved and drink all the beer ;-)
Still, offering Solo-play and PBeM or a bbs/internet "door" is another
way to allow grey-matter to replace silicon 'gates'.. Yep.. agreed.
___________________________________________________________________________
IJ>> Perhaps, I'm merely off the wall here, but I *LIKE* covert
IJ>operations, >spying and (occasionally) pulling one over on the voters or
IJ>my opponents.
IJ>RPG material. For better or worse, most gamers are either "wargamers"
IJ>or "RPG gamers", with many exclusively gaming in their favorite genre.
IJ>Even those of us who play both a lot tend to shun any "mixture" game.
Sorry, I disagree. In *YOUR* strategy games, you prefer to play the
"Commander"; in mine, I prefer being the "Commander-In-Chief" because I
really despise being screwed into repeating 'history' over and over..
I really think your definition of an RPG is a bit skewed, guy.. Further,
I am getting the impression that you keep viewing Strategy Games as pretty
clearly defined and simplified enough to play in terms of Tactical and
Operational levels..
Much as I hated playing Third Reich, I had to admit it was a Strategy
Game, but I despised the simplifications that left the Germans swinging with
a ton of "build-points" and an inability to build..
I prefer Strategy games I can win with my own wits, and the intelligence
to *ALLOW* for luck to screw me over (call it paranoia ;-) By your own
definitions, "Risk" even seems a strategic game - it is super simple, too;
but, it also is heavily dice-dependent..
___________________________________________________________________________
IJ>>Apparently, few gamers appreciate the fact that information is as useful
IJ>as >providing DISinformation. And, although I never got into the Civil
IJ>War Era, >those enthusiasts know very well what the loss of FAST
IJ>transport and >communications mean ;-)
IJ>Just because we know that information is a critical aspect in RL doesn't
IJ>mean that we prefer playing a game that way. The game SFB has rules for
IJ>tactical intelligence, with which identifying the opposing ship(s) and
IJ>their armament is revealed piecemeal during combat, but they're rarely
IJ>used. Even hidden cloaking is not popular (a cloaked Romulan ship's
IJ>counter is still visible under the normal rules).
IJ>--
Hmmm... Back to the "we" again.... (Was there some sort of poll I've
missed?) Even using the *SALES* of a particular title is misleading, since I
know as a *FACT* that many titles were marketed and sold in the 70's that
were flat-out *BAD* - yet we bought them because we liked the company, or
the reviews, or the 'blurbs'..
The rules you specify, (and the game you mention), is (for) a
Boardgame..What else would you expect?!? You already have dice all over,
paper, pencils, maps, chits, a manual(s), coke, pretzels and ashtrays?!?
Said rules become far easier to manage with a computer, which is why I
prefer them BTW <grin>. I also happen to recall spending many evenings
gaming where my friends were busy studying the manual between turns - Dave
in particular was forever reading the "optional rules", and we all soon
learned to be wary of his sudden affiability and suggestions to apply some
of those rules in mid-game!
Look, Issac... If you prefer to deal strictly with combat, that is
fine.. But, I know what *I* like, Ok? Some of "us" (see? I can do it too!;-)
prefer to attempt to understand and manage certain Strategic aspects of a
game.. We want to feel as though *WE* screwed up, and that it wasn't all
predetermined by unfeeling, unchangable hardcode.. "We" prefer to beat the
snot out of opponents that operate under the same limitations - and "we"
also know damn good and well that an able "tactician" is not necessarily an
able "manager" or "analyst", ok?
'Nuf said for the nonce..... Later (off to the hell of work! ;-)
KandaJalen
(PETER VASSOFF) writes:
> Sorry for the lecture, but I had high hopes when this thread started,
>and it seems to be turning into the playground for Physicists, Engineers
and
>Robo-mind folks.. LET'S GET BACK ON TRACK!
>
>--- Pete
> Peter....@Hal9k.com
>
> "I'm Heavily Armed; Easily Irritated; and Outa' Thorazine!"
Greetings...
First of all, I must compliment you on your tagline... Loved it..
Anyway. As for your topic RE: Interstellar Strategy.
The Components of Strategy, or rather strategic thinking as it applies
to warfare (and games theory) simply hasn't changed in 3000 years of
evolution. Read "The Art of war" By Sun Tsu and you will see what I mean.
All the presepts and concepts for strategy were laid down even before
that honorable title and reguarded as ancient before the mythical Sun laid
them on rice paper and bamboo shoots.
Even when you apply the concepts to "InterStellar Warfare" The
resulting concepts are still the same:
1: Create advantages for yourself, while you limit the advantages of
your enemy.
2: Do not be predictable. Learn to predict your enemy.
3: Know when to fight, and when not to fight.
4: Know your enemy, and know yourself.
5: Knowledge is power, Intelligence is worth more than equipment.
6: Surprise your opponent, and keep him surprised.
It all adds up to the same thing. In the paradigm of strategy, it
makes no difference if you are fighting with rocks and sticks in 1 million
BC, or with Mechs in 3100 AD. The Concepts are all the same. Thus....
It is no surprise that people will devolve to talking tactics,
because that is really the only difference between 1 million BC and 3100
AD. Governmental influences and geopolitical-economic force and all that
is just more equipment and bigger and better numbers in the TACTICAL
arena. It has nothing to do with strategy.
You mention that you have given up on games because you seem to have
lost that strategic flavor, somehow the taiste has become "tactical" and
it is bitter.... Case in point: Chess has always been billed as a purely
strategic game, when in fact it is actually pure tactics. There is no
strategic component of chess. Or rather, the strategic component of chess
is not found on the board or with the pieces. Its found in the
interaction between the players. Thus computer chess games cannot play
strategic chess. They can only play tactical (read- Mechanical) chess.
This is a well known fact in games theory. Computers cannot be
diplomisized. (read- psyched out)
My point is: You will not find any strategic games on the computer.
Only tactical games.
Those games billed as "strategic level" have a completely different
meaning for the word altogether and I think you know what I mean. But we
both know that they are really just "Grand-Tactical" games in that they
portray larger units. But really, units are units reguardless of their
size.
So anyway, Just thought I'd clear up that misunderstanding....
Kanda'
Kujala Matti
>Kujala Matti <k15...@proffa.cc.tut.fi> wrote:
>>>_COLONIZATION_
>> Regarding companies, what would make the colonies interesting to them?
>One reason is prestige and/or PR. How many governments fund high
>performance automotive research? How many companies have their own
>multi-million dollar Formula 1 racecar?
I'm not very convinced with that, after all F1 means only millions, and
now we are talking about at least billions.
>>Building a colony itself is not very expensive. There are research
>>stations at Antarctica, just add food production and there you go. If you
>The thing is, we can't just add food production. We don't know how to
>create a self sustaining biosphere yet. What's more, the closest we've
>ever gotten (Biosphere II) shows us that it requires a very great
>volume per human, and even in the absense of humans we don't know how
>to do it (Biosphere II remains in operation only with the assistance
>of a huge mechanical bellows which brings in fresh air).
I'm simplifying very much. How ever, I believe that with enought funds
and some 10 years of research we would make them work. No actual
technological breaks are needed?
Kujala Matti
>In a contribution about Interstellar Strategy, k15...@proffa.cc.tut.fi wrote:
>> Considering moon, make the above air-tight and add air recycling. And
>>travel expenses!
>You can mine oxygen from lunar minerals (there's work in Australia pretty much done). Water is
>a problem, but the mining technique uses hydrogen, so...
>Wastes?
Somehow I think these could be just dumped to back yard...
>Food?
I'm suposing they could grow their food.
>Entertainment?
>Social contact?
I mentioned money being the reason for people to stay there and these are
the reasons. However, I would expect troubles unless the colony is size
of a small town.
>Colonies aren't all that easy to make.
My general pessimistic tone reflects this ;-)
>It would be interesting to see a game that involved two parts: earthside where a civilization
>prepares for extraterrestrial colonization and moonside where the colony takes place. It
>becomes a time juggling venture. How much time are you willing to spend to prepare the colony?
> The more time you spend, the faster the colony grows. But what about the competition? Who'll
>rule the moon?
>Maybe this wouldn't be very fun, but it'd be interesting to *see*. (Well, the solution is a
>parabola.. just figure out the parabola's max value and you're set... limited replay value).
Just add enought randomness and some other stuff and that parabola stuff
doesn't bother too much anymore. Just thinking about computer game
Civilization for example, there's only one optimal strategy, but it won't
make a bad game.
Isaac Ji Kuo
PETER VASSOFF <peter....@hal9k.com> wrote:
>On 11/10/95, ISAAC JI KUO says:
>IJ>Civilization spans _millenia_ in game time, and yet can be played in less
>IJ>time than a balanced Axis and Allies game. For that and other reasons,
> Really? I can't see how the hell I can possibly compress 'game-time' to
>such a degree and still allow for the inevitable rebellion and insurgency/
>counter-insurgency aspects of colonization and national/factional aspects?
Each turn is about a century, and such petty things as precisely who is
in charge and what little political intrigues are going on are simplified
away. This is a big picture game.
>IJ>> I can imagine that a Game where you played Lincoln trying to manage
>IJ>a >zoo of generals, a war, Washington Politics and yer wife could be
>IJ>made to >entertain and fascinate - depends on the approach.
>IJ>I wouldn't call such a game a strategy game. It'd be an RPG.
> An RPG? </rotfl> Look, Issac: an RPG is an *extreme* form of tactical
>combat (baseline def), it forces the player to *micromanage*..
Not all RPGs are D&D clones, concentrating on personal stats.
>IJ>And yet a lot of us don't care to play (much less design) a computer
>IJ>game. We _prefer_ the unrealistic level of information because it means
>IJ>that victory tends to go with whoever is a better tactician rather than
>IJ>whoever's simply luckier. If a game is going to be determined largely
> OTOH, that *luck* you speak so lightly about is part and parcel of every
>conflict in history.. Montgomery, Patton, Napolean or Alexander The Great..
A certain factor of luck is necessary, but this luck is within the
battle, where a sign of a brilliant commander is his ability to
recognize and capitalize on a chance and/or his ability to recognize
and recover from a setback.
> Is it *luck* to sift intelligence from multiple and (sometimes)
>conflicting reports, or is it skill?
It takes skill, but it's luck which tells the USN that the Japanese
going to attacking Midway and it's luck by which Yamamoto's submarine
picket is sent too late to see the US fleets leave Hawaii and it's
luck which causes one of Nogumo's float planes to pass over task force
16&17 without spotting them.
>IJ>Computer wargames do not neet an AI. Computer wargames without them are
>IJ>developed much faster and more easily. However, they tend to be
>IJ>conversions of traditional wargames, where the real advantages of
>IJ>traditional wargames show through. I wont bother trying to list them,
>IJ>because even the most "silly" advantage is enough. That's the
>IJ>"touchy-feely" advantage, which is enough to make normal chess sets more
>IJ>popular than computer versions with animation.
> Well, anytime I write a program that is supposed to at *least* respond
>as I would, it's an AI.. I didn't mention Neural Nets and such, but if had a
>decent sample, I'd try those too.
Umm...have you ever written a program which even comes close to responding
as well as you?
>IJ>> Perhaps, I'm merely off the wall here, but I *LIKE* covert
>IJ>operations, >spying and (occasionally) pulling one over on the voters or
>IJ>my opponents.
>IJ>RPG material. For better or worse, most gamers are either "wargamers"
>IJ>or "RPG gamers", with many exclusively gaming in their favorite genre.
>IJ>Even those of us who play both a lot tend to shun any "mixture" game.
> Sorry, I disagree. In *YOUR* strategy games, you prefer to play the
>"Commander"; in mine, I prefer being the "Commander-In-Chief" because I
>really despise being screwed into repeating 'history' over and over..
Are you "most gamers"? Did I ever claim I was?
> I prefer Strategy games I can win with my own wits, and the intelligence
>to *ALLOW* for luck to screw me over (call it paranoia ;-) By your own
>definitions, "Risk" even seems a strategic game - it is super simple, too;
>but, it also is heavily dice-dependent..
Actually, my attitude is the same, however I think that dealing in
"covert operations" and "spying" and internal politics inevitably
leads to a reduction in the significance of player intelligence on
the outcome of the game.
>IJ>Just because we know that information is a critical aspect in RL doesn't
>IJ>mean that we prefer playing a game that way. The game SFB has rules for
>IJ>tactical intelligence, with which identifying the opposing ship(s) and
>IJ>their armament is revealed piecemeal during combat, but they're rarely
>IJ>used. Even hidden cloaking is not popular (a cloaked Romulan ship's
>IJ>counter is still visible under the normal rules).
> Hmmm... Back to the "we" again.... (Was there some sort of poll I've
>missed?)
No poll, but surely even you must have noticed the attitude and the
games played by everyone you know, and if we look at the Usenet
Newsgroups...
> Said rules become far easier to manage with a computer, which is why I
>prefer them BTW <grin>.
But then the game is more complex than can be encompassed easily by
the human player. A game as complex as SFB (which, btw, is probably
more complex than any computer wargame written so far) still has its
rules simple enough for a human to think through the various
possibilities and fine tune strategy for it. You can't do that if
you don't know the rules.
> Look, Issac... If you prefer to deal strictly with combat, that is
>fine.. But, I know what *I* like, Ok? Some of "us" (see? I can do it too!;-)
>prefer to attempt to understand and manage certain Strategic aspects of a
>game.. We want to feel as though *WE* screwed up, and that it wasn't all
>predetermined by unfeeling, unchangable hardcode.. "We" prefer to beat the
>snot out of opponents that operate under the same limitations - and "we"
>also know damn good and well that an able "tactician" is not necessarily an
>able "manager" or "analyst", ok?
This is all well and good, but you're the one who's complaining about
things getting "off topic". Did I once complain about others discussing
"people factors"? No, I merely explained why I (and others) did not.
By all means, discuss mechanisms for internal political intrigue or
whatever. I'm not going to participate, and given my disinterest it's
no loss.
human
>It takes skill, but it's luck which tells the USN that the Japanese
>going to attacking Midway and it's luck by which Yamamoto's submarine
>picket is sent too late to see the US fleets leave Hawaii and it's
>luck which causes one of Nogumo's float planes to pass over task force
>16&17 without spotting them.
Luck? I'd say they were intelligence, operational friction and lack of training/weather, respectively. However, I do
agree that these are aspects of a game that might be replaced by 'luck', ie a die roll. However, if one had the time to
compute a lot of numbers (on a computer maybe) one might influence this die roll by how much resources the player
allocated to intelligence spending, communications spending (or tech level?), and training (or rookie/veteran levels of
units) and climate.
Isaac Ji Kuo
Kujala Matti <k15...@proffa.cc.tut.fi> wrote:
>cs41...@bit.csc.lsu.edu (ISAAC JI KUO) writes:
>>Kujala Matti <k15...@proffa.cc.tut.fi> wrote:
>>>>_COLONIZATION_
>>> Regarding companies, what would make the colonies interesting to them?
>>One reason is prestige and/or PR. How many governments fund high
>>performance automotive research? How many companies have their own
>>multi-million dollar Formula 1 racecar?
>I'm not very convinced with that, after all F1 means only millions, and
>now we are talking about at least billions.
That's true for now, and not surprisingly we don't see any coorporations
engaging in PR related manned space work. However, the dollar costs
of space travel will diminish while the financial power of modern
coorporations continues to rise.
>>>Building a colony itself is not very expensive. There are research
>>>stations at Antarctica, just add food production and there you go. If you
>>The thing is, we can't just add food production. We don't know how to
>>create a self sustaining biosphere yet. What's more, the closest we've
[...]
>I'm simplifying very much. How ever, I believe that with enought funds
>and some 10 years of research we would make them work. No actual
>technological breaks are needed?
Little new technology and no radically new technology is needed,
we just have to figure out how to put it all together. However,
it's already clear that a large amount of extra resources are
required for food production compared to stored/imported supplies.
Sunir Shah
r...@iris.washington.edu wrote:
> It has been brought to question what motivations would prompt
>colonization of planets and star systems, since from our perspective
>right now, going to the stars would be so expensive that no
organization
>in its right mind would fund such a project. What do we have to gain
>from going to the stars?
The great things about games is that you can manipulate history into
whatever you want. All of a sudden some scientist discovers a
relatively cheap and fast way to go from A to B. Whatever.
> In the past, motivation came from the prospect of wealth gained
>by finding unclaimed land. Owning vast tracts of land would produce
Unf, with space colonization, that goal changes. The purpose of
colonization was for mercantilism. However, you can't trade with the
mother country if it took you 100 years to get to B. You need another
reason.
>services. Land was a precious commodity, so settling in new areas
>usually reaped rewards to the settlers and the sponsors.
Land wasn't just a commodity, but a necessity. Think of the Hugonauts
who were forced out of their country? They had to go SOMEWHERE. The
New World worked for them. Political reasons could be a good motivator.
> Who's to say that this motivation couldn't take place in the
>future? Perhaps we will have explorers in the future equivalent to
I do. It'll be completely worthless. It would take too long to reap
any rewards.
>Eriksson, Columbus, and Magellan who will find other habitable systems
>where vast resources await. Knowing of these New Worlds would excite
I'm glad you read your history. Columbus and Magellan were looking for
trade routes to the East. Erikson had nothing better to do. His
father, Eric the Red, was an explorer. Lief was born in Greenland and
had nowhere to go. Besides, growing up as an explorer's son must've
played a role in his career choice. BTW, there's another reason to
leave: inhospitable climate. Suppose earth greenhouses itself.
At any rate, I don't expect a faster route to China would be through the
Horsehead nebula. Man, that WOULD be the slow boat to China, eh? :)
Hey... history DOES pay off. :)
There's another good reason to colonize: exploration because of
curiosity. After you're a good long ways from home, you have to land
somewhere and settle or you'll die. After you have a base, you could go
back and tell your mother country what you found ... much later on.
The Phoenecians wanted to colonize just for the sake of colonizing.
True adventurers. They never expected to ever hear from their colony
ships again and usually never did.
>polluted Earth for a new home where they can start again. If there is
This is conceivable
>sufficient wealth out there to prospect, the people will go, and the
This is ludicrous. There are no fiscal concerns if you are disconnected
from the rest of the human race. It will become a communist colony
simply because it'll make sense. You can't have anyone backstabbed when
you're starting out. Later on, perhaps, it'll be capitalist, but not
right away. At any rate, they wouldn't trade with earth... amongst
themselves, sure. How would you ensure the quality if you had to ship
cargo for years... succulent fish from Alpha Centauri or dirt by the
time it gets back to the homeworld?
>administrations will back them up, just like they have done in ages
>past.
They will, but it will really be upto the individuals to make it happen.
>interesting), or it may lead to completely new situations. Would we
>contact other intelligent life? Would we make peace or war with them?
It's not as simple as peace or war. It never is.
>Heaven forbid, would there be slavery as a result?
On who's part?
Sunir Shah
wrote:
> I find it rather interesting that only 2 persons have replied to my
>post
>which was intended to get this thread back on topic: only Baily and
Kuo!
This thread is no where near on topic. I've noticed how this ng has
degenerated into something completely oblivious to game design.
>STRATEGY is some form of TACTICAL combat..
Ya. Maybe someone should define the two terms. I would, but the book
that had the really killer definition of both is now out of reach.
My haphazard attempt:
Strategy involves concepts of warfare (not war, warefare) and tactics
involve the processes.
The strategy is to cripple manufacturing. The tactics is to send in
divisions A and B to attack such and such oil refinery using flanking
manouevers.
>and play said games, but I hesitate to spend money on games nowadays..
Personally, I think games suck. There are a lot of really BAD games out
there. However, the few really good games have inspired me to leap into
this profession. The trick is to make those really good games. :)
> We have people proposing MechWar (again and still); we have people
Can we say Battletech fans? :)
>those that spit on FTL (proposing Sublight, planetary combat)..
Personally, I think there are two methods of interstellar... Devise some
nifty new FTL drive right of Sci-Fi, which is alright, as this is a
game, or have no method of speedy communications between two stars.
> Now, as I understand the word _STRATEGY,_ the original topic meant
>the
>BROAD, VAST SWEEP of war, economics and EMPIRE, eh? Here, we have a
Well ... I think the problem is that the topic isn't defined properly.
With the multiplicity of options everyone is debating over
technicalities because you can't go anywhere without them. You need to
know whether you're talking FTL or sub-light. You need to know the
purpose of colonization.. You need to know how much faster than light
hte FTL drive is, etc. I'd love for everyone to have a general
consensus on something like a jump gate. I prefer jump gates that don't
go from every star to every star, but from a certain star to a couple of
other stars in a web-like map. That adds a lot of strategy.
> _INTERSTELLAR_ implies (at least to me!) a multiplicity of worlds,
>environments, cultures, governments, economics and WAR. It implies
War isn't a necessity... you'd include it, but there should be other
methods to kick ass in a really good game. But, yes, multiple worlds.
>governments.. They may all be human, they may not.. They may include a
See.. another technicality. Where do aliens fit in? How much more
advanced or behind than us are they? If you can't measure that because
their culture is significantly different than ours, how do we interact
with them?
> Now, NONE of these subjects have been discussed.. Am I to assume
As I stated, you can't. Maybe the originator of the thread will spend
time outlining what he or she considers the definition of the game and
we can finalize from there. More likely, this thread is likely to go
on until December.
>the only readers here are Engineers - seeing everything as a mechanical
>objet? Am I to assume that People are no longer worthy of note, nor the
>things they either feel valuable, important or required?
People? What are they? Aren't we all AIs in a basement somewhere? :)
> Sorry for the lecture, but I had high hopes when this thread
>started,
Same here.
>Robo-mind folks.. LET'S GET BACK ON TRACK!
Here, here.
Sunir Shah
>means, and it is accepted by many scientists today: wormholes. Not your
Works for me.
>starships. Wormholes can't be set on a planet, but could be in orbit
>around or near habitable worlds and resources. So spaceships are
>required,
Then you have to concern yourself with solar system defenses (within
reasonable distances from the thing you have to protect). This becomes
a wait and watch time thing for defense. You'd have to dicern the best
places to stash your defenses to provide the best cover. That could be
fun, if a bit tedious.
>they will probably use antimatter reaction drives, and have a reaction
>mass to payload mass of 4 to 1. (Fuel mass is in milligrams, all of it
>antimatter.)
That really doesn't matter as long as everyone moves at a speed that is
challenging and entertaining. Don't pull a F-19 Stealth Fighter and
take one hour to get from point A to B (I swear... even in hypermode it
took half an hour to get to target one).
>3. How mature is the interstellar community? Thousands of years old or
>only hundreds? Widespread colonies, or only a few mature ones? Are
Why not just start immature and watch the empire grow to maturity? Why
not start with nothing and go from there? Why not have everyone mature
and have a rich interstellar culture that is now faced with a problem?
All of these are decent games.
>aliens involved or just speciated humans? These questions need to be
>answered first before we go any further.
There are too many options, unf, to go down one track.
Aaron Mandelbaum
>On 11/10/95, ISAAC JI KUO says:
>IJ>Civilization spans _millenia_ in game time, and yet can be played in less
>IJ>time than a balanced Axis and Allies game. For that and other reasons,
>IJ>I take it as a good place to look for inspiration on possible game
>IJ>mechanics in an interstellar wargame.
> Really? I can't see how the hell I can possibly compress 'game-time' to
>such a degree and still allow for the inevitable rebellion and insurgency/
>counter-insurgency aspects of colonization and national/factional aspects?
> As I see it, if a turn spans a century or two, then the problem is
>certainly well resolved in one or another ways about 100 or 150 years before
>I can respond to the problem or intrigues..
Obviously, then, such concerns have no place in a realistic interstellar
strategy game, where you have 200 years lag time before your commands can be
carried out. You have to stop micromanaging and look at the strategic
aspects -- this sector of space has a really crappy economy and needs to be
reorganized, 27 colonies over there vanished without a trace... that kind of
thing.
>IJ>> I can imagine that a Game where you played Lincoln trying to manage
>IJ>a >zoo of generals, a war, Washington Politics and yer wife could be
>IJ>made to >entertain and fascinate - depends on the approach.
>IJ>I wouldn't call such a game a strategy game. It'd be an RPG.
> An RPG? </rotfl> Look, Issac: an RPG is an *extreme* form of tactical
>combat (baseline def), it forces the player to *micromanage*..
And what do you call going down to the level of detail where your wife's
parties are relevant? There isn't any strategy anymore -- there's you taking
on the ROLE of the president. Role playing.
In order to be able to plan strategy, you have to have a level of knowledge
and control that just isn't realistic.
[snip]
> I really think your definition of an RPG is a bit skewed, guy.. Further,
>I am getting the impression that you keep viewing Strategy Games as pretty
>clearly defined and simplified enough to play in terms of Tactical and
>Operational levels..
I think your definition of 'strategic' is really off... you seem to think
that adding economic and political details increases the strategy.
> I prefer Strategy games I can win with my own wits, and the intelligence
>to *ALLOW* for luck to screw me over (call it paranoia ;-) By your own
>definitions, "Risk" even seems a strategic game - it is super simple, too;
>but, it also is heavily dice-dependent..
Even? It's certainly not tactical. It even includes elements of supply and
production. :) And the luck factor rarely makes a difference. It may not be
a very complex game, but it's certainly strategic.
--
Aaron Mandelbaum
Robert Casey
> In a contribution about Interstellar Strategy: Colonization,
> r...@iris.washington.edu wrote:
>
> > It has been brought to question what motivations would prompt
> >colonization of planets and star systems, since from our perspective
> >right now, going to the stars would be so expensive that no
> organization
> >in its right mind would fund such a project. What do we have to gain
> >from going to the stars?
>
> The great things about games is that you can manipulate history into
> whatever you want. All of a sudden some scientist discovers a
> relatively cheap and fast way to go from A to B. Whatever.
A good premise to take when considering interstellar colonization.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > In the past, motivation came from the prospect of wealth gained
> >by finding unclaimed land. Owning vast tracts of land would produce
>
> Unf, with space colonization, that goal changes. The purpose of
> colonization was for mercantilism. However, you can't trade with the
> mother country if it took you 100 years to get to B. You need another
> reason.
On the other hand, your argument contradicts your earlier premise
of cheap and *fast* means of getting from point A to B. We would want to
assume a reasonable trade route could be established with the core worlds
if the scope of interstellar colonization were to take form. Hence, the
goal *could* be much the same as in the past (mercantilism).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >services. Land was a precious commodity, so settling in new areas
> >usually reaped rewards to the settlers and the sponsors.
>
> Land wasn't just a commodity, but a necessity. Think of the Hugonauts
> who were forced out of their country? They had to go SOMEWHERE. The
> New World worked for them. Political reasons could be a good motivator.
If the political reasons were enough that the government would
sponsor their transit to an off-world colony, then that would be fine.
But remember that, in the colonization era, not just any person would be
able to hop a ship to a distant star on a whim. It will take political
and/or corporate backing (and the contracts to go with it) for someone to
travel.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > Who's to say that this motivation couldn't take place in the
> >future? Perhaps we will have explorers in the future equivalent to
>
> I do. It'll be completely worthless. It would take too long to reap
> any rewards.
Earlier argument already put forth. We assume fast and humanly
attainable interstellar travel, at least on a scope similar to shipping in
the 1500's - 1700's in terms of cost and travel time.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >Eriksson, Columbus, and Magellan who will find other habitable systems
> >where vast resources await. Knowing of these New Worlds would excite
>
> I'm glad you read your history. Columbus and Magellan were looking for
> trade routes to the East. Erikson had nothing better to do. His
> father, Eric the Red, was an explorer. Lief was born in Greenland and
> had nowhere to go. Besides, growing up as an explorer's son must've
> played a role in his career choice. BTW, there's another reason to
> leave: inhospitable climate. Suppose earth greenhouses itself.
Your point is so noted and I won't pretend to be an expert on the
exact motivations of these individuals. However, they *were motivated*
into the unknown, either for conquest or for mercantile gains. I am sure
they were following baser goals than being "heroic explorers". The point
is, *something* has to get a person into a starship and *something* has to
drive them to go somewhere with it. I believe that
corporate/government/imperial interests will generally outweigh private
interests at the outset of colonization.
The 'greenhouse escape' you speak of would be acceptable, but
again you would need backing from a large administration to get off of
the launch pad.
The point is. Joe Public can't just up and build a starship in
his backyard and go for a joyride. Not at the timeframe I am speaking of.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
> At any rate, I don't expect a faster route to China would be through the
> Horsehead nebula. Man, that WOULD be the slow boat to China, eh? :)
Heh heh heh. Had to laugh there. :-)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
> There's another good reason to colonize: exploration because of
> curiosity. After you're a good long ways from home, you have to land
> somewhere and settle or you'll die. After you have a base, you could go
> back and tell your mother country what you found ... much later on.
>
> The Phoenecians wanted to colonize just for the sake of colonizing.
> True adventurers. They never expected to ever hear from their colony
> ships again and usually never did.
This would be admirable, but the means to do so would need to be
there. Since the cost of interstellar travel will be so extreme at first,
you wouldn't see bush pilots taking to the stars. You would need
organizational backing to go explore and settle. What would you tell them
to convince them to fund your journey? I guess you could hope that you
belong to a culture (like how you portray the Phoenicians) that puts a
high value on exploration. Other nations have tended to have their values
elsewhere.
-----------------------------------------------------------;------------
Robert Casey, Data Control Technician |\
IRIS Data Management Center ..... .. .,^ /\ | \ /\ .....
1408 NE 45th St. ~ ~ ' \| ! ~~
Seattle, WA 98105 ;
------------------------------------------------------------------------
(r...@iris.washington.edu)
Isaac Ji Kuo
Sporeboy1 <spor...@aol.com> wrote:
>>starships. Wormholes can't be set on a planet, but could be in orbit
>>>around or near habitable worlds and resources. So spaceships are
>>>required,
>why does there always have to be worm holes. why not an interstellae game
>that only had ships with conventional drives. so when you sent a fleet to
>attack another planet it wouldn't get there for hundreds of years. i don't
>think any other game has this, and it would stnd out. i hate a great game
>that wimps out like this.
For a baseline idea of the feasibility of this, an efficient D-T
fusion rocket with its Isp of 1,000,000seconds and a fuel/payload
ratio of merely 2/1 could acheive up to 10,000km/sec delta V,
or 1/30c. Increase that to 9/1 and you can even stop at the destination.
If you're willing to wait a couple hundred years, you could send
_massive_ fleets from a solar system to a nearby neighbor.
ss...@intranet.on.ca
Reply-from: Unknown
Subj: Re: Interstellar Strategy
Hi!
IJ>Civilization spans _millenia_ in game time, and yet can be played in less
IJ>time than a balanced Axis and Allies game. For that and other reasons,
IJ>I take it as a good place to look for inspiration on possible game
IJ>mechanics in an interstellar wargame.
Pe> Really? I can't see how the hell I can possibly compress
Pe> 'game-time' to such a degree and still allow for the inevitable
Pe> rebellion and insurgency/ counter-insurgency aspects of colonization
Pe> and national/factional aspects?
Pe> As I see it, if a turn spans a century or two, then the problem is
Pe> certainly well resolved in one or another ways about 100 or 150 years
Pe> before I can respond to the problem or intrigues..
You ever play Civi before? If you did, you'll notice that game time starts
off at 100 year intervals and as the game goes on, the intervals decrease in
size. Also, Civi has rebellions (oh, does it ever.. I got so sick of sending
troops to outlying settlements I deleted the game once). Civi isn't strong
for politics, though. It could've been, but it's not. That's alright, it's
my third favourite game after Monkey Island I and II. You can't have
something like Civi TOO complex or it's not playable.
--
Sunir Shah (ss...@intranet.on.ca)
WWW: http://intranet.on.ca/~sshah/ FidoNet: 1:241/11
BBS: The Open Fire BBS +1(613)584-1606
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___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.12
>> SlipStream Jet v1.014 (Unregistered) - (C) 1995 PBE
ja...@bashful.einsteininfo.com
:
I developed, tested and almost sold a board game called GAPS! (Gravitational
Anomoly Portal) a number of years ago; the general idea of the game
was to allow players to simulate just about any form of SF gaming that
they liked. The specific theme was the exploration and conquest of
an interstellar empire.
The trick was that ships had limited FTL; sending a fleet to attack
another player's colony WOULD take decades; the growth of technology
would catch up with players.
It was (is) very playable; a turn, which represented 50 years was
resolved in about 15 minutes (down to five for experienced players)
during which time they could explore, build colonies, armies, ships,
move, contact non-advanced aliens, negotiate between themselves, etc.
I've been working on an electronic version for some time now. Any
interest/comments?
human
>In a contribution about Interstellar Strategy: Colonization,
>r...@iris.washington.edu wrote:
>
>>Eriksson, Columbus, and Magellan who will find other habitable systems
>>where vast resources await. Knowing of these New Worlds would excite
>
>I'm glad you read your history. Columbus and Magellan were looking for
>trade routes to the East. Erikson had nothing better to do. His
*TRADE* ROUTES TO THE EAST. Like, sailing to the east, loading up with goods, bringing them home and selling them? Tea, rubber, oil...
You're not just so stupid that you are arguing for the sake of it, you actually prove the other fellows argument. Nice one.
Noone knew about oil till they discovered it, and no one knew what to do with it for many years after that. Space exploration could well
bring back something that 3M or Matsushita or Sony could use in some patentable (money making) process that changes the way we live. And
then theres advertising. How much would AT&T love to beat Sprint to the first interplanetary phone call? Or Sega have the first CD's
manufactured in orbit around Saturn? :)
The British Empire, the single most powerful nation in history (until WWII bankrupted them), economically and militarily, derived its power
from *trade*. So governments have a motivation to get their scientists into space before those evil <favorite voter-motivating slur here>
get their hands on it. Does the USA want another OPEC crisis?
Isaac Ji Kuo
John H. Reiher Jr. <joh...@microsoft.com> wrote:
>isaa...@OCF.Berkeley.EDU says...
>>For a baseline idea of the feasibility of this, an efficient D-T
>>fusion rocket with its Isp of 1,000,000seconds and a fuel/payload
>>ratio of merely 2/1 could acheive up to 10,000km/sec delta V,
>>or 1/30c. Increase that to 9/1 and you can even stop at the destination.
>Actually, from what I've read and researched, a D-T fusion rocket would have a
>10:1 fuel to payload ratio. Take a look at a book by Dr. Robert Forward:
>_Indistinguishable from Magic_. In it, he points out that the best reaction
>mass to payload ratio is 4:1, and that only if you use anti-matter as the
>energy source. However, it's 4:1 no matter where you want to go.
You must misunderstand, in some strange way.
The fuel/payload ratio varies depending on how fast you want to go.
Really. It honestly takes less fuel if you don't need to go as fast.
I don't know how you got the impression that a reaction mass to
payload ratio of 4:1 was some sort of constant. It may have an
advantage of maximizing energy efficiency--but raw energy is
very cheap in space compared to propellant mass.
>Want to go to the moon, it's 4:1. Want to go to Jupiter, it's 4:1. Want to go
>to Alpha Centauri, it's 4:1. The big difference is the amount of antimater
>needed to do the trip. Even to a star lightyears away, we're talking about
>kilograms of antimatter, not tons.
Actually, for interplanetary trips the ideal drive is almost certainly
a fusion drive. It already has the Isp necessary to make complete
interplanetary trips with only a few percent propellant/payload mass
ratio, and unlike anti-matter drives it is powered by a naturally
available energy source (highly common hydrogen isotopes).
>With our current technology, we could build a antimatter drive. It would
>consist of a tungsten cylinder, about one ton in mass, and it would be pierced
>with numerous holes. The cylinder is filled with hydrogen gas, then some
>antimatter is added, just a few molecules.
No, we couldn't build a an antimatter drive with current technology.
We can't make a single _atom_ of anti-matter yet, much less a "few
molecules". The small particles of anti-matter we can create can
be contained, to an extent, but only at a _very_ high mass containment
system (compared to the total mass of the particles). The result
would be Isp capabilities which compressed air would dwarf.
>... With this design, we can get 2 to 3
>times better thrust than we can from our best chemical rockets. If we can work
>out a magnetic containment system, we can get even higher thrusts, and not
>worry about the drive melting.
We already have magnetic containment systems--actually, they're the only
kind we have.
Anyway, "thrust" level is nowhere near as significant as the main
limiting factor of the effectiveness of rockets--the delta-V
capability, which is practically limited by Isp.
Chemical rockets are limited to perhaps 500 seconds Isp at best.
Solid core nuclear rockets already approach 1000 seconds Isp.
Existing ion thrusters acheive 10,000 seconds Isp, but are only
capable of extremely low thrust/weight ratios.
John H. Reiher Jr.
>
>In article <48i9fi$7...@newsbf02.news.aol.com>,
>Sporeboy1 <spor...@aol.com> wrote:
>>>starships. Wormholes can't be set on a planet, but could be in orbit
>>>>around or near habitable worlds and resources. So spaceships are
>>>>required,
>
>>why does there always have to be worm holes. why not an interstellae game
>>that only had ships with conventional drives. so when you sent a fleet to
>>attack another planet it wouldn't get there for hundreds of years. i don't
>>think any other game has this, and it would stnd out. i hate a great game
>>that wimps out like this.
>
>fusion rocket with its Isp of 1,000,000seconds and a fuel/payload
>ratio of merely 2/1 could acheive up to 10,000km/sec delta V,
>or 1/30c. Increase that to 9/1 and you can even stop at the destination.
>
Actually, from what I've read and researched, a D-T fusion rocket would have a
10:1 fuel to payload ratio. Take a look at a book by Dr. Robert Forward:
_Indistinguishable from Magic_. In it, he points out that the best reaction
mass to payload ratio is 4:1, and that only if you use anti-matter as the
energy source. However, it's 4:1 no matter where you want to go.
Want to go to the moon, it's 4:1. Want to go to Jupiter, it's 4:1. Want to go
to Alpha Centauri, it's 4:1. The big difference is the amount of antimater
needed to do the trip. Even to a star lightyears away, we're talking about
kilograms of antimatter, not tons.
With our current technology, we could build a antimatter drive. It would
consist of a tungsten cylinder, about one ton in mass, and it would be pierced
with numerous holes. The cylinder is filled with hydrogen gas, then some
antimatter is added, just a few molecules. The annihilation would generate
enough heat to the gas into plasma, which, while exiting the cylinder, keeps it
cool enough to prevent it from melting. With this design, we can get 2 to 3
times better thrust than we can from our best chemical rockets. If we can work
out a magnetic containment system, we can get even higher thrusts, and not
worry about the drive melting.
John
ss...@intranet.on.ca
Reply-from: Unknown
Subj: Re: Interstellar Strategy
Hey, Pit!
Sc> Here my thoughts about reasons for colonizing space:
Sc> +[was: columbus went to discover new trade routes]
Sc> Suppose tha SETI programs finds intelligence.
That would be cool. That's an interesting perspective. It's about time
someone thought of something new to add. :)
Sc> Then the idea might be to start moving in that direction.
The political problems on earth would be interesting. After all, would you
announce you found aliens if you ran the country?
Sc> +[was: religious differences]
Sc> Sciencetology could be moving towards space.
Scientology creeps me out. I just don't bother thinking about 'em. No other
group spends its time critisizing existing theories instead of coming up with
its own (well, my frame of reference is the essays published in my history
text from last year).
Sc> +Because it is there.
The problems: a) boring game, b) too costly. Our society is capitalistic,
not technocratic.
Sc> +[was: earth turns into greenhouse]
Sc> Even if it doesn't turn into a greenhouse, the sun will
Sc> eventually go *@BOOM!',', so earth HAS to be left someday.
Most people seem to think we'll be free-floating plasma clouds of thought.
Naturally I laugh at such notions, but we're safe for a long, long time from
destruction by nova.
In the year 5030840843 AD, man FINALLY bothered to colonize OUTSIDE the solar
system. It's your duty to see to it that we don't get our butts kicked
although everyone else in the universe has had a couple billion years on us.
:-)
--
Sunir Shah (sshah@intranetWWW: http://intranet.on.ca/~sshah/ FidoNet: 1:241/11
BBS: The Open Fire BBS +1(613)584-1606
The Programmers' Booklist : http://intranet.on.ca/~sshah/booklist.html
Synapsis Entertainment : http://intranet.on.ca/~sshah/synapsis.html
WASTE (Wargame AI Contest): http://intranet.on.ca/~sshah/waste/waste.html
ss...@intranet.on.ca
Reply-from: Unknown
Subj: Re: Interstellar Strategy
Hi!
It's been awhile since I've been flamed.. Right on! This'll be fun.
>>Eriksson, Columbus, and Magellan who will find other habitable systems
>>where vast resources await. Knowing of these New Worlds would excite
>
>I'm glad you read your history. Columbus and Magellan were looking for
>trade routes to the East. Erikson had nothing better to do. His
Hu> *TRADE* ROUTES TO THE EAST. Like, sailing to the east, loading up with
Hu> goods, bringing them home and selling them? Tea, rubber, oil... You're
As far as I remember, the purpose of these explorers' counterparts in space
was to find the resources and settle. No mercantilism there.
However, as Rob pointed out to me, I completely forgot my first statement of
game-world history. Mr. Scientist Dude comes up with an affordable way of
getting from point A to point B fast. Mercantilism THEN becomes reasonable.
At any rate, that wouldn't be much of a strategic game, would it? I'm kind of
bored of all this off-topic mail, BTW. I think I'll try tying it all into an
end product.
Hu> not just so stupid that you are arguing for the sake of it, you
Hu> actually prove the other fellows argument. Nice one.
I don't argue for the sake of it unless I'm really tired and I'm in a SysOp
Echo. Oh ya, I have to hate the person I'm arguing with.
Hu> Noone knew about oil till they discovered it, and no one knew what to
Hu> do with it for many years after that. Space exploration could well
Hu> bring back something that 3M or Matsushita or Sony could use in some
Hu> patentable (mone
Something changes the way we live every five years. Big whoop.
Hu> then theres advertising. How much would AT&T love to beat Sprint to
Hu> the first interplanetary phone call? Or Sega have the first CD's
Hu> manufactured in orbit around Saturn? :)
Why the hell would Sega want to manufacture CD's around Saturn?
You're not talking advertising, mon ami. You are talking business and
competition. That I can understand. At any rate, there are opportunities,
sure, but they don't matter. Wepolitical/economic/militaristic strategy game, no?
Resources and technological advancements seem applicable.
Hu> The British Empire, the single most powerful nation in history (until
Hu> WWII bankrupted them), economically and militarily, derived its power
Hu> from *trade*. So governments have a motivation to get their scientists
Trade or plunder? That's not important. Maybe I'm just bitter from listening
to my parents too often.
Hu> into space before those evil <favorite voter-motiva Hu> their hands on it. Does the USA want another OPEC crisis?
Nationalism... sorry, it's just that I'm laughing over your use of the country
U.S.A. You see, I'm from Canada. A lot of people in this ng aren't from
America. It's a bit annoying to have this Amero-centric viewpoint of the
universe. :-) Anyhoo...
The thing you are forgetting is that exploration doesn't necessarily lead to
colonization. What you require is a profitable goal. There has to be
something to colonize before you colo
That's why (relatively) cheap instanteneous travel drives are so important for
a game of this nature. Forget physics. Not important.
--
Sunir Shah (ss...@intranet.on.ca)
WWW: http://intranet.on.ca/~sshah/ FidoNet: 1:241/11
BBS: The Open Fire BBS +1(613)584-1606
The Programmers' Booklist : http://intranet.on.ca/~sshah/booklist.html
Synapsis Entertainment : http://intranet.on.ca/~sshah/synapsis.html
WASTE (Wargame AI Contest): http://intranet.on.ca/~sshah/waste/waste.html
Stefan E. Jones
>Actually, from what I've read and researched, a D-T fusion rocket would have a
>10:1 fuel to payload ratio. Take a look at a book by Dr. Robert Forward:
>_Indistinguishable from Magic_. In it, he points out that the best reaction
>mass to payload ratio is 4:1, and that only if you use anti-matter as the
>energy source. However, it's 4:1 no matter where you want to go.
>
>Want to go to the moon, it's 4:1. Want to go to Jupiter, it's 4:1. Want to go
>to Alpha Centauri, it's 4:1. The big difference is the amount of antimater
>needed to do the trip. Even to a star lightyears away, we're talking about
>kilograms of antimatter, not tons.
Yes, but at what speed? There is going to come to be a point where you
will want more reaction mass to mix with that antimatter.
>With our current technology, we could build a antimatter drive. It would
>consist of a tungsten cylinder, about one ton in mass, and it would be pierced
>with numerous holes. The cylinder is filled with hydrogen gas, then some
>antimatter is added, just a few molecules. The annihilation would generate
>enough heat to the gas into plasma, which, while exiting the cylinder, keeps it
>cool enough to prevent it from melting. With this design, we can get 2 to 3
>times better thrust than we can from our best chemical rockets. If we can work
>out a magnetic containment system, we can get even higher thrusts, and not
>worry about the drive melting.
Now, since this topic is about STRATEGIC games, start thinking about what
sort of installations, industries, skills and such will be needed to support
such ships. Antimatter doesn't get mined from the ground. You have to
make it. It takes energy to make positrons and anti-protons. Lots of it.
That means a huge industrial base. Also, ships would have to have some
sort of way to make antimatter "out thar."
Consider this when imagining the strategic situation an interstellar war
would be fought in.
human
>In article <49cpua$f...@news.microsoft.com>,
>John H. Reiher Jr. <joh...@microsoft.com> wrote:
>
>>Actually, from what I've read and researched, a D-T fusion rocket would have a
>>10:1 fuel to payload ratio. Take a look at a book by Dr. Robert Forward:
>>_Indistinguishable from Magic_. In it, he points out that the best reaction
>>mass to payload ratio is 4:1, and that only if you use anti-matter as the
>>energy source. However, it's 4:1 no matter where you want to go.
>>
>>Want to go to the moon, it's 4:1. Want to go to Jupiter, it's 4:1. Want to go
>>to Alpha Centauri, it's 4:1. The big difference is the amount of antimater
>>needed to do the trip. Even to a star lightyears away, we're talking about
>>kilograms of antimatter, not tons.
>
>Yes, but at what speed? There is going to come to be a point where you
>will want more reaction mass to mix with that antimatter.
>
Er, its one part matter to one part antimatter.
>>With our current technology, we could build a antimatter drive. It would
>>consist of a tungsten cylinder, about one ton in mass, and it would be pierced
>>with numerous holes. The cylinder is filled with hydrogen gas, then some
>>antimatter is added, just a few molecules. The annihilation would generate
>>enough heat to the gas into plasma, which, while exiting the cylinder, keeps it
>>cool enough to prevent it from melting. With this design, we can get 2 to 3
>>times better thrust than we can from our best chemical rockets. If we can work
>>out a magnetic containment system, we can get even higher thrusts, and not
>>worry about the drive melting.
>
>Now, since this topic is about STRATEGIC games, start thinking about what
>sort of installations, industries, skills and such will be needed to support
>such ships. Antimatter doesn't get mined from the ground. You have to
>make it. It takes energy to make positrons and anti-protons. Lots of it.
>That means a huge industrial base. Also, ships would have to have some
>sort of way to make antimatter "out thar."
Er, so? You need the same amount of *energy* and it has to come from somewhere. With antimatter you would pre-process it, or
would you stick coal on your space ship? Do you stick crude oil in your car? And since your total mass would be less (less
fuel) you would need *less* energy too, so you save there. In fact, the small mass would make fuel transport a much more viable
proposition. Hmmm. Anyone know the various efficiencies of these reactions: matter->antimatter, fusion->motion,
anihilation->motion...?
This, of course, has to be balanced against the fact that you could scoop hydrogen from planetary atmospheres.
So, you would have big, slow, hydrogen burners that could replenish themselves easily, and fuck-fast (that english for 'really
really fast'), anti-matter burners that need supplying. Hmmm, wouldnt that be fun in a strategy game? I think so.
>
>Consider this when imagining the strategic situation an interstellar war
>would be fought in.
>
Cool!
John H. Reiher Jr.
>
>>>For a baseline idea of the feasibility of this, an efficient D-T
>>>fusion rocket with its Isp of 1,000,000seconds and a fuel/payload
>>>ratio of merely 2/1 could acheive up to 10,000km/sec delta V,
>>>or 1/30c. Increase that to 9/1 and you can even stop at the destination.
>
a
>>10:1 fuel to payload ratio. Take a look at a book by Dr. Robert Forward:
>>_Indistinguishable from Magic_. In it, he points out that the best reaction
>>mass to payload ratio is 4:1, and that only if you use anti-matter as the
>>energy source. However, it's 4:1 no matter where you want to go.
>
>
>The fuel/payload ratio varies depending on how fast you want to go.
>Really. It honestly takes less fuel if you don't need to go as fast.
>
>I don't know how you got the impression that a reaction mass to
>payload ratio of 4:1 was some sort of constant. It may have an
>advantage of maximizing energy efficiency--but raw energy is
>very cheap in space compared to propellant mass.
>
No, you misunderstand in some strange way.
When I say reaction mass, I'm not refering to fuel, I'm refering to the mass
that is expelled by the reaction with the fuel. Yes the fuel does vary with the
distance travelled, but the fuel here is antimatter, and the variance is in
milligrams. Reaction mass is constant, 4:1, while fuel varies with the trip
distance.
>>Want to go to the moon, it's 4:1. Want to go to Jupiter, it's 4:1. Want to go
>>to Alpha Centauri, it's 4:1. The big difference is the amount of antimater
>>needed to do the trip. Even to a star lightyears away, we're talking about
>>kilograms of antimatter, not tons.
>
>Actually, for interplanetary trips the ideal drive is almost certainly
>a fusion drive. It already has the Isp necessary to make complete
>interplanetary trips with only a few percent propellant/payload mass
>ratio, and unlike anti-matter drives it is powered by a naturally
>available energy source (highly common hydrogen isotopes).
>
Well, first off, what kind of fusion drive are you talking about? The manly
plasma spewing fusion torch? The variations on the steam drive? (The heat from
the fusion source is used to heat up some operating fluid, hydrogen, water,
mercury, and that liquid is expelled at high velocities.) Fusion powered Ion
drives?
The anitmatter drive is the ideal one. It always uses the same amount of
reaction mass, and the same vessel can either do a heavy thrust and coast to
destination or a constant thrust and turn over, all the way there. And it can
use normal hydrogen, the most common element around, and not some hard to find
isotope.
>Anyway, "thrust" level is nowhere near as significant as the main
>limiting factor of the effectiveness of rockets--the delta-V
>capability, which is practically limited by Isp.
>
>Chemical rockets are limited to perhaps 500 seconds Isp at best.
>Solid core nuclear rockets already approach 1000 seconds Isp.
>Existing ion thrusters acheive 10,000 seconds Isp, but are only
>capable of extremely low thrust/weight ratios.
Which brings up the question, where did you get 1,000,000 seconds Isp for a
fusion drive? Since we have never built one of these either, these numbers
sound almost made up.
But enough of this. This is suppose to be a discussion on Interstellar
Strategy, not theoretical physics 101.
Let's get back on topic, OK?
John
Isaac Ji Kuo
TriTacRep2 <trita...@aol.com> wrote:
>isaa...@OCF.Berkeley.EDU (Isaac Ji Kuo) Writes
>>The fuel/payload ratio varies depending on how fast you want to go.
>>Really. It honestly takes less fuel if you don't need to go as fast.
>OK. Let's be polite about this, but, according to some of the best minds
>out there, to be specific: Robert L. Forward, The Optimal Reaction Mass to
>Payload Mass is 4:1. He said so in his paper published in the Journal of
>Propulsion and Power, Vol 1, pp 370-374, 1985.
Just what does it optimize? It may optimize energy efficiency, as I've
said before, but it does _not_ always optimize cost.
>On the other hand, you are right, it does take less *fuel*, your fuel is
>antimatter.
No, your fuel is antimatter only if you're using an antimatter rocket.
There are other kinds of rocket, and some of them actually have
_much_ lower than 1:1 propellant/payload mass ratios. In particular,
the 10,000 second Isp ion rockets used for stationkeeping in
satellites (which, btw, can be used for interplanetary journeys with
more propellant) are RL examples.
>To go from earth to moon, you need only *milligrams* of
>antimatter. To go to the stars, you need *kilograms*. However, to get your
>ship moving fast enough, takes mass. And based on exhaustive calculations,
>that mass to payload ration is 4:1, period. To anywhere, period.
No it is not. Really. The optimal propellant/payload mass ratio
honestly depends on what exactly it is you intend to do, and just
what you're going to use to do it.
Check out any of the dozen conference proceedings of the annual Space
Nuclear Power symposiums held in Albequerque, New Mexico for RL
data about RL and theoretical nuclear propulsion.
>>Actually, for interplanetary trips the ideal drive is almost certainly
>>a fusion drive. It already has the Isp necessary to make complete
>>interplanetary trips with only a few percent propellant/payload mass
>>ratio, and unlike anti-matter drives it is powered by a naturally
>>available energy source (highly common hydrogen isotopes).
>No fusion is not the best, it's only 1% efficient at producing energy,
>while antimatter is 200% efficient. The Isp you'd get from a antimatter
>drive would be equal or better than a hypothetical fusion drive.
Yes, the Isp possible from an antimatter drive can be as high, but
a fusion drive is still probably ideal.
Why? Because you have to balance the costs of propellant with the
costs of energy. With relatively low Isp and high desired delta-V,
the overwhelming costs involved are the cost of the propellant.
With an Isp several times larger than the desired delta-V/G, only
a small portion of the total mass of a spacecraft need be
propellant, and the overwhelming cost can become the cost of the
energy.
A fusion rocket can have 100,000 sec Isp as a conservative lower
bound. This is already very easily within the class of needing
only 1% of mass to be propellant for typical interplanetary
journeys.
Thus, it's already good enough for interplanetary travel. The
main costs become those of how much the energy costs. Here, a
fusion drive has an incredible advantage over an antimatter drive
in that its energy is naturally available--simply "mine" it.
>>No, we couldn't build a an antimatter drive with current technology.
>>We can't make a single _atom_ of anti-matter yet, much less a "few
>1992, at the Second Antihydrogen Workshop, held in Munich Germany,
>Fermilab announce that they had created 30 atoms of antihydrogen at CERN.
>Yes, we have made antimatter atoms. You can read about it, in _The
>Proceedings of the Antihydrogen Workshop_, Hyperfine Interactions, Vol 76,
>pp 1-402, 1993.
I stand corrected.
>>We already have magnetic containment systems--actually, they're the only
>>kind we have.
>Actually, what we don't have are magnetic containment systems that can
>withstand the heat an antimatter drive could produce and not collaspe. It
>would require that we figure out how to make room temperature
>superconductors, and not weigh that much more than its tungsten cousing
>above.
Umm...the containment system does not need to be part of or
adjacent to the rocket nozzle, and the heat generated would only
be proportional to the thrust level desired.
>I don't have the exact figures at hand, just the references, but Dr.
>Forward is very sure that we can build one of these and use them quite
>well.
While you're at it, try and check out other books on nuclear space
power. Especially look at estimates on propellant/payload mass
ratios. Even for _solid_core_ (fission) nuclear rockets, interplanetary
journeys are practicable with 3:1 ratios. That's with under 100 sec
Isp. With _existing_ ion rockets, the mass ratio is down to a few
percent--but the travel times are horrendous due to the low
acceleration.
TriTacRep2
>John H. Reiher Jr. <joh...@microsoft.com> wrote:
>>isaa...@OCF.Berkeley.EDU says...
>
>>>For a baseline idea of the feasibility of this, an efficient D-T
>>>fusion rocket with its Isp of 1,000,000seconds and a fuel/payload
>>>ratio of merely 2/1 could acheive up to 10,000km/sec delta V,
>>>or 1/30c. Increase that to 9/1 and you can even stop at the
destination.
>
>>Actually, from what I've read and researched, a D-T fusion rocket would
have a
>>10:1 fuel to payload ratio. Take a look at a book by Dr. Robert
Forward:
>>_Indistinguishable from Magic_. In it, he points out that the best
reaction
>>mass to payload ratio is 4:1, and that only if you use anti-matter as
the
>>energy source. However, it's 4:1 no matter where you want to go.
>
>You must misunderstand, in some strange way.
>
>Really. It honestly takes less fuel if you don't need to go as fast.
OK. Let's be polite about this, but, according to some of the best minds
out there, to be specific: Robert L. Forward, The Optimal Reaction Mass to
Payload Mass is 4:1. He said so in his paper published in the Journal of
Propulsion and Power, Vol 1, pp 370-374, 1985.
On the other hand, you are right, it does take less *fuel*, your fuel is
antimatter. To go from earth to moon, you need only *milligrams* of
antimatter. To go to the stars, you need *kilograms*. However, to get your
ship moving fast enough, takes mass. And based on exhaustive calculations,
that mass to payload ration is 4:1, period. To anywhere, period.
>Actually, for interplanetary trips the ideal drive is almost certainly
>a fusion drive. It already has the Isp necessary to make complete
>interplanetary trips with only a few percent propellant/payload mass
>ratio, and unlike anti-matter drives it is powered by a naturally
>available energy source (highly common hydrogen isotopes).
No fusion is not the best, it's only 1% efficient at producing energy,
while antimatter is 200% efficient. The Isp you'd get from a antimatter
drive would be equal or better than a hypothetical fusion drive.
>>With our current technology, we could build a antimatter drive. It would
>>consist of a tungsten cylinder, about one ton in mass, and it would be
pierced
>>with numerous holes. The cylinder is filled with hydrogen gas, then some
>>antimatter is added, just a few molecules.
>
>No, we couldn't build a an antimatter drive with current technology.
>We can't make a single _atom_ of anti-matter yet, much less a "few
>molecules". The small particles of anti-matter we can create can
>be contained, to an extent, but only at a _very_ high mass containment
>system (compared to the total mass of the particles). The result
>would be Isp capabilities which compressed air would dwarf.
1992, at the Second Antihydrogen Workshop, held in Munich Germany,
Fermilab announce that they had created 30 atoms of antihydrogen at CERN.
Yes, we have made antimatter atoms. You can read about it, in _The
Proceedings of the Antihydrogen Workshop_, Hyperfine Interactions, Vol 76,
pp 1-402, 1993.
>>... With this design, we can get 2 to 3
>>times better thrust than we can from our best chemical rockets. If we
can work
>>out a magnetic containment system, we can get even higher thrusts, and
not
>>worry about the drive melting.
>
>We already have magnetic containment systems--actually, they're the only
>kind we have.
Actually, what we don't have are magnetic containment systems that can
withstand the heat an antimatter drive could produce and not collaspe. It
would require that we figure out how to make room temperature
superconductors, and not weigh that much more than its tungsten cousing
above.
I don't have the exact figures at hand, just the references, but Dr.
Forward is very sure that we can build one of these and use them quite
well.
Next time I see him I'll see if I can get some hard numbers.
------------------------
John H. Reiher Jr.
TriTa...@aol.com
Tri Tac Systems
------------------------
These are my opinions, unless I say different.
Usually when I'm doing my Mouthpiece bit for Tri Tac Systems.
------------------------
Calvin: The more you think about things, the weirder they seem. Take this
milk. Why do we drink *cow* milk?? Who was the guy who first looked at a
cow and said "I think I'll drink whatever come out of these things when I
squeeze 'em!"?
Isn't that weird?
Hobbes: I think conversation should be kept to a minimum until afternoon.
------------------------
Aaron Mandelbaum
>>With our current technology, we could build a antimatter drive. It would
>>consist of a tungsten cylinder, about one ton in mass, and it would be
>pierced
>>with numerous holes. The cylinder is filled with hydrogen gas, then some
>>antimatter is added, just a few molecules. The annihilation would generate
>>enough heat to the gas into plasma, which, while exiting the cylinder,
[snip]
>Now, since this topic is about STRATEGIC games, start thinking about what
>sort of installations, industries, skills and such will be needed to support
>such ships. Antimatter doesn't get mined from the ground. You have to
>make it. It takes energy to make positrons and anti-protons. Lots of it.
>That means a huge industrial base. Also, ships would have to have some
>sort of way to make antimatter "out thar."
Well, you could have antimatter generated by sattelites with huge solar
collectors, probably orbiting pretty close to the sun since since the
energy/mass ratio of antimatter is so high, the extra energy you get from
being close to the sun would outweigh the cost of shipping it out to where
you need it (and shipping the beryllium or whatever in to be converted). The
cost wouldn't be *trivial*, since you have to build these stations and place
them in orbit, but the energy would essentially be free.
It would also be safer -- I know I wouldn't want an antimatter plant in my
backyard.
>Consider this when imagining the strategic situation an interstellar war
>would be fought in.
Since these are vulnerable space-based and rather expensive facilities,
you'd probably only generate antimatter fuel at a few (secret?) locations,
and ship it everywhere else. Reaction mass can be picked up anywhere. In a
game, the ships would have to have two kinds of fuel ratings -- antimatter,
that's relatively hard to replce but isn't used up too quickly, and reaction
mass which needs to be topped off at every stop.
--
Aaron Mandelbaum
Isaac Ji Kuo
>>John H. Reiher Jr. <joh...@microsoft.com> wrote:
>>>10:1 fuel to payload ratio. Take a look at a book by Dr. Robert Forward:
>>>_Indistinguishable from Magic_. In it, he points out that the best reaction
>>>mass to payload ratio is 4:1, and that only if you use anti-matter as the
>>>energy source. However, it's 4:1 no matter where you want to go.
>>The fuel/payload ratio varies depending on how fast you want to go.
>>Really. It honestly takes less fuel if you don't need to go as fast.
>>I don't know how you got the impression that a reaction mass to
>>payload ratio of 4:1 was some sort of constant. It may have an
>>advantage of maximizing energy efficiency--but raw energy is
>>very cheap in space compared to propellant mass.
>No, you misunderstand in some strange way.
>When I say reaction mass, I'm not refering to fuel, I'm refering to the mass
>that is expelled by the reaction with the fuel.
I know precisely what you mean. Propellant==reaction mass. It's the
stuff that gets expelled, and is basically the most expensive part
of the running cost of a typical rocket because it is entirely consumed.
>Yes the fuel does vary with the
>distance travelled, but the fuel here is antimatter, and the variance is in
>milligrams. Reaction mass is constant, 4:1, while fuel varies with the trip
>distance.
Minimizing the reaction mass is very desireable because it is expensive.
Not as expensive as anti-matter, of course, but then the most economical
rockets won't need any antimatter (e.g. nuclear powered ion rockets).
A fission nuclear powered ion rocket meant for interplanetary missions
would devote only a few percent of total mass to the propellant (reaction
mass). Take a look at _any_ proposed interplanetary ion rocket propelled
spacecraft. In particular, a lot of detailed propsals of manned missions
to mars include ion rocket propelled craft.
The whole reason why the ion rocket is even considered in the first place
is to minimize the reaction mass. The trip time is comparable to nuclear
thermal rockets.
>>Actually, for interplanetary trips the ideal drive is almost certainly
>>a fusion drive. It already has the Isp necessary to make complete
>>interplanetary trips with only a few percent propellant/payload mass
>>ratio, and unlike anti-matter drives it is powered by a naturally
>>available energy source (highly common hydrogen isotopes).
>Well, first off, what kind of fusion drive are you talking about?
There are a number of theoretically investigated fusion drives, with
the highest Isp potential from directly using fusion products to propel
a spacecraft (either magnetic bottle steady fusion or Orion drive).
This Isp, however, is into the hundreds of thousands of seconds, far
too high for efficient interplanetary missions--but at a level where
interstellar journeys may be practical.
A lower Isp can be generated by using the fusion products to heat
propellant, which not only improves thrust levels but also improves
energy efficiency. So long as this Isp is over 10,000 seconds, only
a few percent of total mass need be devoted to propellant, so the
propellant costs remain low.
>The anitmatter drive is the ideal one. It always uses the same amount of
>reaction mass, and the same vessel can either do a heavy thrust and coast to
>destination or a constant thrust and turn over, all the way there.
Look, mister. All I ask is for you to look into any books about space
nuclear power to find out what factors _really_ matter in space travel.
One of them is to minimize the reaction mass.
>And it can
>use normal hydrogen, the most common element around, and not some hard to find
>isotope.
Sorry, but an anti-matter drive _needs_ antimatter. Normal hydrogen is
the ideal propellant for any non-chemical thermal rocket (including
nuclear and anti-matter and beamed-power), but the energy source to
heat it up is necessary.
An anti-matter drive by definition requires anti-matter to power it.
Anti-matter is simply not a naturally occuring resource, so it must
be created. From what? Presumably from power generated by fusion
power plants. In that case, why not save a few wasteful steps and
simply use the fusion reactants directly with fusion rockets?
>>Chemical rockets are limited to perhaps 500 seconds Isp at best.
>>Solid core nuclear rockets already approach 1000 seconds Isp.
>>Existing ion thrusters acheive 10,000 seconds Isp, but are only
>>capable of extremely low thrust/weight ratios.
>Which brings up the question, where did you get 1,000,000 seconds Isp for a
>fusion drive? Since we have never built one of these either, these numbers
>sound almost made up.
From any decent book on space nuclear power. We have a theoretical
limit of around 1,000,000 seconds Isp from a D-T fusion drive due
to the energy density of the reaction. More conservative estimates
are as low as 100,000 seconds, but this is already 2 orders of magnitude
greater than solid core nuclear thermal rockets.
Vicke Dovheden
isaa...@OCF.Berkeley.EDU (Isaac Ji Kuo) wrote:
>In article <49imvs$1...@news.microsoft.com>,
>John H. Reiher Jr. <joh...@microsoft.com> wrote:
>>isaa...@OCF.Berkeley.EDU says...
>>>John H. Reiher Jr. <joh...@microsoft.com> wrote:
[snip]
>>Which brings up the question, where did you get 1,000,000 seconds Isp for a
>>fusion drive? Since we have never built one of these either, these numbers
>>sound almost made up.
>
>From any decent book on space nuclear power. We have a theoretical
>limit of around 1,000,000 seconds Isp from a D-T fusion drive due
>to the energy density of the reaction. More conservative estimates
>are as low as 100,000 seconds, but this is already 2 orders of magnitude
>greater than solid core nuclear thermal rockets.
>--
"...decent book on space nuclear power.", that sounds interesting!
Do you have any recommendations? Preferably with ISBN and/or publisher.
The availability here in Sweden is, AFAIK, rather limited, so any info
and pointers would be helpful.
TIA
Vicke
> _____ Isaac Kuo (isaa...@tyrell.net or isaa...@OCF.berkeley.edu)
> __|_>o<_|__ As the world looked on ... Earth's fate hung in balance ...
>/___________\ The fight for survival ... now begins! ... FINAL BATTLE IN ...
>\=\>-----</=/ TOMOBIKI-CHO!
Eric Edwards
> An anti-matter drive by definition requires anti-matter to power it.
> Anti-matter is simply not a naturally occuring resource, so it must
> be created. From what? Presumably from power generated by fusion
> power plants. In that case, why not save a few wasteful steps and
> simply use the fusion reactants directly with fusion rockets?
Because those wastefull steps can be done on the ground, where the waste
doesn't really matter. Antimatter is vastly more energy dense than
hydrogen. That means less mass in fuel. Reduceing total mass while
retaining energy is the name of the game.
----
"Not many fishes, in the sea. Not many fishes, just Londo and me"
Remember the home hobbyist computer: Born 1975, died April 29, 1994
John H. Reiher Jr.
>
>In article <49imvs$1...@news.microsoft.com>,
>John H. Reiher Jr. <joh...@microsoft.com> wrote:
>>isaa...@OCF.Berkeley.EDU says...
>>>John H. Reiher Jr. <joh...@microsoft.com> wrote:
>
>I know precisely what you mean. Propellant==reaction mass. It's the
>stuff that gets expelled, and is basically the most expensive part
>of the running cost of a typical rocket because it is entirely consumed.
>
Sorry, when I read over your text, it looked like you were using reaction mass
and fuel interchangably. However, not everyone who reads this may know the
distinction between the two.
>>Yes the fuel does vary with the
>>distance travelled, but the fuel here is antimatter, and the variance is in
>>milligrams. Reaction mass is constant, 4:1, while fuel varies with the trip
>>distance.
>
>Minimizing the reaction mass is very desireable because it is expensive.
>Not as expensive as anti-matter, of course, but then the most economical
>rockets won't need any antimatter (e.g. nuclear powered ion rockets).
>
>A fission nuclear powered ion rocket meant for interplanetary missions
>would devote only a few percent of total mass to the propellant (reaction
>mass). Take a look at _any_ proposed interplanetary ion rocket propelled
>spacecraft. In particular, a lot of detailed propsals of manned missions
>to mars include ion rocket propelled craft.
>
>The whole reason why the ion rocket is even considered in the first place
>is to minimize the reaction mass. The trip time is comparable to nuclear
>thermal rockets.
Well, yes, you reduce reaction mass, somewhat, but then you have this big
fission reactor powering the ion motor. So, what you gain by using an ion
motor you loose by slapping a reactor, and it's shielding, and extra fuel rods,
and their shielding on board your ship. And in about 20 years, the thermal
stresses the reactor has undergone, may make it dangeous to the crew, not to
mention the radiation hazzard it represents.
At least with antimatter, we can use tungsten to attenuate the gamma rays, and
the pions and muons generated do have a charge, so they can be directed away
from the ship before they decay. At anihilation rate needed, the drive chamber
itself should be all the shielding we need. Yes, it too will subcumb to thermal
stresses, but it won't be a quarter as radioactive as that fission pile would
be.
>
>>>Actually, for interplanetary trips the ideal drive is almost certainly
>>>a fusion drive. It already has the Isp necessary to make complete
>>>interplanetary trips with only a few percent propellant/payload mass
>>>ratio, and unlike anti-matter drives it is powered by a naturally
>>>available energy source (highly common hydrogen isotopes).
>
>>Well, first off, what kind of fusion drive are you talking about?
>
>There are a number of theoretically investigated fusion drives, with
>the highest Isp potential from directly using fusion products to propel
>a spacecraft (either magnetic bottle steady fusion or Orion drive).
Well, the data I've seen about a "fusion torch" drive is that it's starting to
look kind of impractical. To get the kind of thrust you need, you have to use
the fusion process to heat up propellant, since you'll be fusing only
milligrams of deutronium (sp?) and/or tritium. And, like the ion motor, if you
try to use just the fusion process itself, you get low thrust.
The Orion/Daedelus model both are good models, though mechanically, they have
problems in fuel delivery, e.g. can we deliver 250 hydrazine fuel pellets a
second to the fusion chamber?
The other design is the Enzman (sp?) fusion ship, which is basically a large
ball of frozen deutronium, a lifesystem, and fusion drive. All these designs,
however, have the same thing in common: big propellant tanks, small payloads.
[snippage]
>>And it can
>>use normal hydrogen, the most common element around, and not some hard to
>>find isotope.
>
>Sorry, but an anti-matter drive _needs_ antimatter. Normal hydrogen is
>the ideal propellant for any non-chemical thermal rocket (including
>nuclear and anti-matter and beamed-power), but the energy source to
>heat it up is necessary.
>
>An anti-matter drive by definition requires anti-matter to power it.
>Anti-matter is simply not a naturally occuring resource, so it must
>be created. From what? Presumably from power generated by fusion
>power plants. In that case, why not save a few wasteful steps and
>simply use the fusion reactants directly with fusion rockets?
Actually, you'd use solar powered, space based, antimatter "farms". Sunlight is
cheap, and will last for another 5 billion or so years, so there would be no
problem in getting enough power to producing the amount of anitmatter that we
need for a functioning society.
Deutronium is a relatively rare isotope of hydrogen, and tritium's half life is
such that you have to manufacture it. In fact it'd be easier to use current
heavy water manufacturing techniques to make your own deut, than to filter it
out of "raw" materials. Tritium production would be nastier, and produce
hazardous waste that would have to be dealt with.
John
Aaron Mandelbaum
>An anti-matter drive by definition requires anti-matter to power it.
>Anti-matter is simply not a naturally occuring resource, so it must
>be created. From what? Presumably from power generated by fusion
>power plants. In that case, why not save a few wasteful steps and
>simply use the fusion reactants directly with fusion rockets?
Because we can't get profitable fusion in really huge installations, let
alone portable reactors. Fusion involves compressing and heating the
reactants to an incredible degree. If the shielding and ignition system for
the fusion reactor dominates the mass of the ship, you'd be better off with
antimatter, which can be generated by any power source. Most usefully, by
non-mobile ones like solar power, geothermal, whatever. What you're saying
is that we could save a few wasteful steps by building the oil wells and
refineries onto an automobile so it can use the world's oil reserves
directly.
Of course, if the shielding and containment for the antimatter is worse than
for fusion, you should use fusion. But it isn't *necessarily* the best idea.
>>Which brings up the question, where did you get 1,000,000 seconds Isp for a
>>fusion drive? Since we have never built one of these either, these numbers
>>sound almost made up.
>From any decent book on space nuclear power. We have a theoretical
>limit of around 1,000,000 seconds Isp from a D-T fusion drive due
>to the energy density of the reaction. More conservative estimates
>are as low as 100,000 seconds, but this is already 2 orders of magnitude
>greater than solid core nuclear thermal rockets.
Wouldn't the theoretical limit for antimatter have to exceed that for fusion
by several orders of magnitude, since it converts *all* the matter to
energy, instead of a few percent?
--
Aaron Mandelbaum
Isaac Ji Kuo
>>An anti-matter drive by definition requires anti-matter to power it.
>>Anti-matter is simply not a naturally occuring resource, so it must
>>be created. From what? Presumably from power generated by fusion
>>power plants. In that case, why not save a few wasteful steps and
>>simply use the fusion reactants directly with fusion rockets?
>Because we can't get profitable fusion in really huge installations, let
>alone portable reactors.
Umm...it's fundamentally impossible to get any profitible anti-matter
reactor (since the input energy will always exceed the output energy),
so that premise can't justify any superiority of anti-matter.
Besides, we've already demonstrated positive energy outputs from fusion
reactions--and the French continue to do much to the annoyance of most
everyone else. The fact that we've already matured the technology of
detonated fusion reactions and have such difficulty with controlled
fusion is a big reason why so many fusion rocket concepts proposed use
pulse detonation. Some even propose igniting the detonations with
anti-protons.
>Fusion involves compressing and heating the
>reactants to an incredible degree. If the shielding and ignition system for
>the fusion reactor dominates the mass of the ship, you'd be better off with
>antimatter,
Anti-matter drives will require more shielding than fusion, especially
the very clean D-He3 reaction. The high energy gamma rays emitted are
far more penetrating than the neutrons emitted by even D-D and D-T
reactions--and the vast bulk of the energy is in those gamma rays,
meaning it's not enough just to absorb the energy, it must be converted
into work for the design to be feasable in the first place!
>which can be generated by any power source. Most usefully, by
>non-mobile ones like solar power, geothermal, whatever. What you're saying
>is that we could save a few wasteful steps by building the oil wells and
>refineries onto an automobile so it can use the world's oil reserves
>directly.
The analogy is worth noting, but it breaks down in the details.
Gasoline, deisel, and turbine engines are much more capable
than equivalently sized external combustion engines
(e.g. Sterling cycle) which can burn crude oil.
>>>Which brings up the question, where did you get 1,000,000 seconds Isp for a
>>>fusion drive? Since we have never built one of these either, these numbers
>>>sound almost made up.
>>From any decent book on space nuclear power. We have a theoretical
>>limit of around 1,000,000 seconds Isp from a D-T fusion drive due
>>to the energy density of the reaction. More conservative estimates
>>are as low as 100,000 seconds, but this is already 2 orders of magnitude
>>greater than solid core nuclear thermal rockets.
>Wouldn't the theoretical limit for antimatter have to exceed that for fusion
>by several orders of magnitude, since it converts *all* the matter to
>energy, instead of a few percent?
Yes it does. However, for interplanetary journeys the extra Isp simply
doesn't translate into a big savings in propellant mass. The difference
between fusion and chemical rockets is between a 10,000% propellant
mass and a 1% propellant mass. The difference between fusion and
an antimatter photon/relativistic partical rocket is between 1% mass and
negligible mass. That's just not a significant cost difference compared
to differences in the energy cost (among other things).
Isaac Ji Kuo
Vicke Dovheden <vi...@df.lth.se> wrote:
>"...decent book on space nuclear power.", that sounds interesting!
>Do you have any recommendations? Preferably with ISBN and/or publisher.
>The availability here in Sweden is, AFAIK, rather limited, so any info
>and pointers would be helpful.
Randomly jotting down a couple ISBN numbers:
Space Nuclear Power Systems (American Institute of Physics conference
procedings) editted by Mohamed S. El-Genk & Mark Hoover: ISBN 0-88318-838-4
Space Nuclear Power, Angelo a Buden: ISBN 0-89464-000-3
If you really want to find lots of specific ISBN numbers, and can stand
the net lag, try telnetting to a library catalog system, like
gla...@berkeley.edu.
Vicke Dovheden
isaa...@OCF.Berkeley.EDU (Isaac Ji Kuo) wrote:
[snip]
>Randomly jotting down a couple ISBN numbers:
>
>Space Nuclear Power Systems (American Institute of Physics conference
>procedings) editted by Mohamed S. El-Genk & Mark Hoover: ISBN 0-88318-838-4
>
>Space Nuclear Power, Angelo a Buden: ISBN 0-89464-000-3
>
>If you really want to find lots of specific ISBN numbers, and can stand
>the net lag, try telnetting to a library catalog system, like
>gla...@berkeley.edu.
Thanks!
Vicke
John H. Reiher Jr.
>
>In article <adm4.2605...@po.cwru.edu>,
>Aaron Mandelbaum <ad...@po.cwru.edu> wrote:
>>isaa...@OCF.Berkeley.EDU (Isaac Ji Kuo) writes:
>
>>>Anti-matter is simply not a naturally occuring resource, so it must
>>>be created. From what? Presumably from power generated by fusion
>>>power plants. In that case, why not save a few wasteful steps and
>>>simply use the fusion reactants directly with fusion rockets?
>
>>alone portable reactors.
>
>Umm...it's fundamentally impossible to get any profitible anti-matter
>reactor (since the input energy will always exceed the output energy),
>so that premise can't justify any superiority of anti-matter.
>
>Besides, we've already demonstrated positive energy outputs from fusion
>reactions--and the French continue to do much to the annoyance of most
>everyone else. The fact that we've already matured the technology of
>detonated fusion reactions and have such difficulty with controlled
>fusion is a big reason why so many fusion rocket concepts proposed use
>pulse detonation. Some even propose igniting the detonations with
>anti-protons.
Except that, the really good fusion processes, D-He3, make use of not so common
elements, in fact He3 is so rare, we'd have to manufacture it ourselves. So
fusion isn't as profitable. The only "profitable" energy generation system
would be space-based solar power. The energy generation is from the sun, so the
only costs are building the solar arrays and maintaining them.
It's been pointed out that anti-matter production can be fueled in part by the
selfsame solar energy farms. So it might be cheaper to make antimatter in the
long run than fusion power.
>
>>Fusion involves compressing and heating the
>>reactants to an incredible degree. If the shielding and ignition system for
>>the fusion reactor dominates the mass of the ship, you'd be better off with
>>antimatter,
>
>Anti-matter drives will require more shielding than fusion, especially
>the very clean D-He3 reaction. The high energy gamma rays emitted are
>far more penetrating than the neutrons emitted by even D-D and D-T
>reactions--and the vast bulk of the energy is in those gamma rays,
>meaning it's not enough just to absorb the energy, it must be converted
>into work for the design to be feasable in the first place!
You can attenuate gamma-rays with tungsten shielding, about two or three inches
should do it, and almost completely stop the gamma rays. The other byproducts,
pions and muons, have a charge, so they can be redirected by magnetic fields.
D-He3 is clean, but the production facilities for He3 would be comparable to
those for antimatter.
The neutrons emitted by D-D and D-T will be far more dangerous in the long run,
as they will be of the fast variety, and you need more shielding to stop them
or you build looooong space ships with the fusion drive waaaaay in the back.
>
>>which can be generated by any power source. Most usefully, by
>>non-mobile ones like solar power, geothermal, whatever. What you're saying
>>is that we could save a few wasteful steps by building the oil wells and
>>refineries onto an automobile so it can use the world's oil reserves
>>directly.
>
>The analogy is worth noting, but it breaks down in the details.
>Gasoline, deisel, and turbine engines are much more capable
>than equivalently sized external combustion engines
>(e.g. Sterling cycle) which can burn crude oil.
It is worth noting, since he's pointing out not that the car would be burning
crude oil, but instead gasoline that was refined in situ on the vehicle.
>
>>>>Which brings up the question, where did you get 1,000,000 seconds Isp for a
>>>>fusion drive? Since we have never built one of these either, these numbers
>>>>sound almost made up.
>>>From any decent book on space nuclear power. We have a theoretical
>>>limit of around 1,000,000 seconds Isp from a D-T fusion drive due
>>>to the energy density of the reaction. More conservative estimates
>>>are as low as 100,000 seconds, but this is already 2 orders of magnitude
>>>greater than solid core nuclear thermal rockets.
>
>>Wouldn't the theoretical limit for antimatter have to exceed that for fusion
>>by several orders of magnitude, since it converts *all* the matter to
>>energy, instead of a few percent?
>
>Yes it does. However, for interplanetary journeys the extra Isp simply
>doesn't translate into a big savings in propellant mass. The difference
>between fusion and chemical rockets is between a 10,000% propellant
>mass and a 1% propellant mass. The difference between fusion and
>an antimatter photon/relativistic partical rocket is between 1% mass and
>negligible mass. That's just not a significant cost difference compared
>to differences in the energy cost (among other things).
From my readings, albiet in the antimatter camp, the difference between
chemical rockets and fusion ones is not 10,000%, its more along the line of
60:1 versus 10:1. Antimatter comes out on top with a 4:1 propellant to payload
ratio. That, to me, is enough savings to warrant the usage of antimatter as a
viable fuel.
John
Isaac Ji Kuo
John H. Reiher Jr. <joh...@microsoft.com> wrote:
>isaa...@OCF.Berkeley.EDU says...
>>John H. Reiher Jr. <joh...@microsoft.com> wrote:
>>>isaa...@OCF.Berkeley.EDU says...
>>>>John H. Reiher Jr. <joh...@microsoft.com> wrote:
>[snippage]
>>>Yes the fuel does vary with the
>>>distance travelled, but the fuel here is antimatter, and the variance is in
>>>milligrams. Reaction mass is constant, 4:1, while fuel varies with the trip
>>>distance.
>>Minimizing the reaction mass is very desireable because it is expensive.
>>Not as expensive as anti-matter, of course, but then the most economical
>>rockets won't need any antimatter (e.g. nuclear powered ion rockets).
[...]
>>The whole reason why the ion rocket is even considered in the first place
>>is to minimize the reaction mass. The trip time is comparable to nuclear
>>thermal rockets.
>Well, yes, you reduce reaction mass, somewhat, but then you have this big
>fission reactor powering the ion motor. So, what you gain by using an ion
>motor you loose by slapping a reactor, and it's shielding, and extra
>fuel rods, and their shielding on board your ship.
No, you reduce reaction mass _alot_. Just skim the relevant portions
of any book about interplanetary missions including non-chemical rocket
propulsion.
The extra mass of the reactor and shielding and fuel is not extra mass
at all--a thermal nuclear rocket would require just as much. The
extra mass of the ion thrusters are rather small; the heat rejection
equipment and thermionic generators being the main extra mass. However,
for an interplanetary mission to Mars or beyond, the reaction mass
savings more than make up for that.
The real tradeoff involved is the travel time. The savings come at
the cost of increasing travel time due to the low thrust. For this
reason, many manned Mars mission proposals have included unmanned
"cargo" portions propelled by ion rockets which are launched separately
and before the manned capsule.
>And in about 20 years, the thermal
>stresses the reactor has undergone, may make it dangeous to the crew, not to
>mention the radiation hazzard it represents.
Umm...the radiation hazzard is honestly not as serious as the radiation
hazzard of outer space itself. The reactor you can do something about
with shadow shields and distance from the crew. Background radiation
you can't. Thus the hard limit on how long men can be in space (without
very thick shielding).
As for the thermal stresses after 20 years, what sort of stresses would
these nuclear reactors encounter which aren't encountered by the reactors
in some of today's ships and submarines? Any power plant requires lots
of upkeep, of course, and nuclear reactors are no exception.
Incidentally, thermionic power is favored over turbines due to the
vastly reduced maintainance required due to the very low stresses
and minimal moving parts involved (important since space probes can
expect _zero_ maintainance).
>At least with antimatter, we can use tungsten to attenuate the gamma rays, and
>the pions and muons generated do have a charge, so they can be directed away
>from the ship before they decay. At anihilation rate needed, the drive chamber
>itself should be all the shielding we need.
Hehe. And somehow you think this is less shielding than a fission
reactor? The rate of radiation is largely irrelevant to the amount
of shielding needed. It's the energies of the individual emitted
particles which determine how much shielding is needed to stop them,
not how many of them their are. The energies of the particles/photons
emitted by fission are puny compared to anti-proton anihilation.
Of course, just stopping (really, attenuating) the particles/photons
isn't enough if the energy absorbed is of such an extent that damaging
the shielding is a concern. If you want to get a superior Isp from
anti-matter than from fusion, you're going to need to use a relatively
high portion of anti-matter per reaction mass...
>Yes, it too will subcumb to thermal
>stresses, but it won't be a quarter as radioactive as that fission pile would
>be.
You have any numbers to back that up? The total energy emitted is
almost irrelevant; the relevant factor is how energetic the emitted
rays are. That's what determines how much shielding is needed.
>>There are a number of theoretically investigated fusion drives, with
>>the highest Isp potential from directly using fusion products to propel
>>a spacecraft (either magnetic bottle steady fusion or Orion drive).
>Well, the data I've seen about a "fusion torch" drive is that it's starting to
>look kind of impractical. To get the kind of thrust you need, you have to use
>the fusion process to heat up propellant, since you'll be fusing only
>milligrams of deutronium (sp?) and/or tritium. And, like the ion motor, if you
>try to use just the fusion process itself, you get low thrust.
Umm...how is that any less practical than a high Isp antimatter drive?
An antimatter drive could have about the same performance as a direct
fusion drive if the mix were on the order of 200:1 propellant:fuel.
What is impractical about a fusion drive?
>The Orion/Daedelus model both are good models, though mechanically, they have
>problems in fuel delivery, e.g. can we deliver 250 hydrazine fuel pellets a
>second to the fusion chamber?
Come on, delivering the fuel pellets is the _easy_ part. All that's
required is an EM accelerator slightly more complex than a solenoid.
The hard part is detonating the pellets. However, if we can manipulate
anti-matter in significant amounts, this becomes easy too as anti-protons
can be used to detonate them. (The anti-protons coming from a fixed
store which may or may not be replenished by energy gathered from the
detonations).
>The other design is the Enzman (sp?) fusion ship, which is basically a large
>ball of frozen deutronium, a lifesystem, and fusion drive. All these designs,
>however, have the same thing in common: big propellant tanks, small payloads.
Wrong, they only have big propellant tanks for _interstellar_ journeys
expected to require a high percentage of C. Of course, the Daedelus
propsal didn't exactly feature a small payload.
For interplanetary journeys, which is what we're talking about, they'd
all require miniscule amounts of propellant/fuel compared to the
payload.
>[snippage]
>>>And it can
>>>use normal hydrogen, the most common element around, and not some hard to
>>>find isotope.
>>Sorry, but an anti-matter drive _needs_ antimatter. Normal hydrogen is
>>the ideal propellant for any non-chemical thermal rocket (including
>>nuclear and anti-matter and beamed-power), but the energy source to
>>heat it up is necessary.
>>An anti-matter drive by definition requires anti-matter to power it.
>>Anti-matter is simply not a naturally occuring resource, so it must
>>be created. From what? Presumably from power generated by fusion
>>power plants. In that case, why not save a few wasteful steps and
>>simply use the fusion reactants directly with fusion rockets?
>Actually, you'd use solar powered, space based, antimatter "farms".
>Sunlight is cheap,
Actually, sunlight is free. Using it, however, requires resources
and if these were inexpensive the solar revolution would already have
occurred. Unfortunately, the amount of power obtainable for given
resources is not as high as possible via mining for nuclear fuel.
For an idea, we currently get practically all of our energy from
solar light hitting the Earth (indirectly). We don't use anywhere
near the theoretical maximum, but then the Earth is pretty damn big.
If we were to switch _entirely_ to fusion energy from the D-3He
reaction, it would require mining Jupitor for only a thousand tonnes
of 3He per year (ref--BIS Daedalus project).
The sheer power concentration and energy available from fusion power
dwarfs what we could get from Solar with equivalent resources. This
is only possible because the fusion reactions we'd use are much, much,
more energetic than the predominating and terrible sluggish H-H reaction
of the Sun.
> and [sunlight] will last for another 5 billion or so years,
>so there would be no
>problem in getting enough power to producing the amount of anitmatter that we
>need for a functioning society.
If you don't mind waiting billions of years, solar power is impossible
to beat, since there's so much more H than anything else, but the H-H
reaction will force you to wait that long...
>Deutronium is a relatively rare isotope of hydrogen, and tritium's half
>life is such that you have to manufacture it. In fact it'd be easier to
>use current heavy water manufacturing techniques to make your own deut,
>than to filter it out of "raw" materials. Tritium production would be
>nastier, and produce hazardous waste that would have to be dealt with.
There's plenty of Deutronium around, it's just that until we acheive
efficient controlled fusion (or an interplanetary fusion drive), there
isn't much incentive to go and get it.
James Nicoll
Isaac Ji Kuo <isaa...@OCF.Berkeley.EDU> wrote:
major snippage
>>Deutronium is a relatively rare isotope of hydrogen, and tritium's half
>>life is such that you have to manufacture it. In fact it'd be easier to
>>use current heavy water manufacturing techniques to make your own deut,
>>than to filter it out of "raw" materials. Tritium production would be
>>nastier, and produce hazardous waste that would have to be dealt with.
>
>There's plenty of Deutronium around, it's just that until we acheive
>efficient controlled fusion (or an interplanetary fusion drive), there
>isn't much incentive to go and get it.
That will come a hell of a surprise to the people working in
Canada's heavy water refineries. D2O is very useful as a moderator
and coolant in CANDU reactors.
James Nicoll
--
"No ball team wants a dead or paralyzed critter for its mascot."
Danny Boles, in _Brittle Innings_ by Michael Bishop
Isaac Ji Kuo
>>Umm...it's fundamentally impossible to get any profitible anti-matter
>>reactor (since the input energy will always exceed the output energy),
>>so that premise can't justify any superiority of anti-matter.
>>Besides, we've already demonstrated positive energy outputs from fusion
>>reactions--and the French continue to do much to the annoyance of most
>>everyone else. The fact that we've already matured the technology of
>Except that, the really good fusion processes, D-He3, make use of not
>so common elements, in fact He3 is so rare, we'd have to manufacture it
>ourselves. So fusion isn't as profitable.
Actually, 3He is quite abundant--in Jupiter (well, _maybe_ Gallileo's
probe is now proving this wrong, but probably not). The amount needed
for Earth's energy supply, on the order of 1000 tonnes per year, is
small enough to make it very plausible to import it from the outer
planets.
>The only "profitable" energy generation system would be space-based
>solar power. The energy generation is from the sun, so the
>only costs are building the solar arrays and maintaining them.
Those are mighty costs, however, compared to utilizing energy concentrated
in natural resources.
>It's been pointed out that anti-matter production can be fueled in part by the
>selfsame solar energy farms. So it might be cheaper to make antimatter in the
>long run than fusion power.
Well, it might be. While we do have a good idea how expensive solar power
is, we still can't say for sure that continuous fusion will be practical.
However, the energy potential for fusion is so high that it's hard to
imagine it being worse than solar power (even ignoring inefficiencies in
creating antimatter).
>>Anti-matter drives will require more shielding than fusion, especially
>>the very clean D-He3 reaction. The high energy gamma rays emitted are
>>far more penetrating than the neutrons emitted by even D-D and D-T
>>reactions--and the vast bulk of the energy is in those gamma rays,
>>meaning it's not enough just to absorb the energy, it must be converted
>>into work for the design to be feasable in the first place!
>You can attenuate gamma-rays with tungsten shielding, about two or
>three inches should do it, and almost completely stop the gamma rays.
No way. It takes 10 cm of _lead_ to attenuate gamma rays 1,000 fold,
or 20 cm to attenuate it 1,000,000 fold. Compare this to the 2mm of
lead to attenuate X-rays 1,000,000 fold (fusion releases X-rays).
Of course, the neutrons emitted by the easier D-D and D-T reactions
are energetic enough to penetrate as much as gamma rays.
>D-He3 is clean, but the production facilities for He3 would be comparable to
>those for antimatter.
Disagree. It requires separation facilities in Jupiter's atmosphere, and
interplanetary spacecraft.
>>The analogy is worth noting, but it breaks down in the details.
>>Gasoline, deisel, and turbine engines are much more capable
>>than equivalently sized external combustion engines
>>(e.g. Sterling cycle) which can burn crude oil.
>It is worth noting, since he's pointing out not that the car would be burning
>crude oil, but instead gasoline that was refined in situ on the vehicle.
But this is because of the much greater capabilities of engines requiring
refined fuel. An anti-matter powered drive would not such a performance
benefit over a fusion drive, as far as we can tell so far.
>>>Wouldn't the theoretical limit for antimatter have to exceed that for fusion
>>>by several orders of magnitude, since it converts *all* the matter to
>>>energy, instead of a few percent?
>>Yes it does. However, for interplanetary journeys the extra Isp simply
>>doesn't translate into a big savings in propellant mass. The difference
>>between fusion and chemical rockets is between a 10,000% propellant
>>mass and a 1% propellant mass. The difference between fusion and
>>an antimatter photon/relativistic partical rocket is between 1% mass and
>>negligible mass. That's just not a significant cost difference compared
>>to differences in the energy cost (among other things).
>From my readings, albiet in the antimatter camp, the difference between
>chemical rockets and fusion ones is not 10,000%, its more along the line of
>60:1 versus 10:1.
A ratio of 10:1 sounds like a solid core _fission_ thermal drive (or a
high Isp fusion drive for interstellar journeys--but of course a chemical
rocket doesn't even register for interstellar possibilities).
A chemical rocket has less than 500 sec Isp. A mere 6-fold reduction in
reaction mass implies a 1.8x increase in Isp, which implies less than 900
seconds Isp, something already exceeded by existing solid core fission
rockets.
>Antimatter comes out on top with a 4:1 propellant to payload
>ratio. That, to me, is enough savings to warrant the usage of antimatter as a
>viable fuel.
Mika Huurre
>John H. Reiher Jr. <joh...@microsoft.com> wrote:
>>In article <4a3qt5$p...@agate.berkeley.edu>, isaa...@OCF.Berkeley.EDU says...
>>>Aaron Mandelbaum <ad...@po.cwru.edu> wrote:
>>>>isaa...@OCF.Berkeley.EDU (Isaac Ji Kuo) writes:
<things about anti-matter, fusion and so on snipped>
Just popped into my mind (about energy sources) that in A.C.Clarke
book "The Songs of Distant Earth" featured non-FTL-drive which snipped
energy from sub-atomic energy foam (or something like that).
Spaceship (Magellan) used that energy directly for moving itself.
It was also used in small shuttle which utilized atmosphere gases as a
propellant (didn't burn them, just thrusted - I think).
Also, there were some referencies into real studies about subject.
Could this resolve energy problem (and be reasonable realistic)?
Although strategies concerning protecting energy production facilities
(and supply lines they require) could provide more interesting and
challenging situation.
---
Just my foray into this subject... Mika....@mediabase.fi
---
Stefan E. Jones
Mika Huurre <Mika....@mediabase.fi> wrote:
>
>Just popped into my mind (about energy sources) that in A.C.Clarke
>book "The Songs of Distant Earth" featured non-FTL-drive which snipped
>energy from sub-atomic energy foam (or something like that).
To amplify a little bit:
At the quantum level, the fabric of the space-time continuum is a sea
of constantly appearing and annhilating virtual particle pairs. The
energy for their creation comes from their eventual annihilation; find
a way to extract real, usable energy from this flux, and you have a
handle on the secrets of creation, much less a energy source.
>Spaceship (Magellan) used that energy directly for moving itself.
>It was also used in small shuttle which utilized atmosphere gases as a
>propellant (didn't burn them, just thrusted - I think).
>Also, there were some referencies into real studies about subject.
>
>Could this resolve energy problem (and be reasonable realistic)?
>Although strategies concerning protecting energy production facilities
>(and supply lines they require) could provide more interesting and
>challenging situation.
This would be the ultimate source of power. Whoever had it . . . well,
let's hope they'd be nice people.
Unless you could make a pure photon drive, you would still need to have
reaction mass. It could be anything, including any hydrogen you find
lying around. OTOH, you might be able to make your own reation mass.
If you have unlimited energy, you can cook up any element you want.
Of course, this energy source would also eliminate almost any need to
fight over territory, or just about anything else. You could terraform
any world you came across, melt useless planets into raw materials,
build deep-space habitats with artificial suns . . . . etc.
The only thing left to fight over would be weird ideological stuff.
PETER VASSOFF
On 12/12/95, ISAAC JI says:
[snippage..]
IJ>>>The analogy is worth noting, but it breaks down in the details.
IJ>>>Gasoline, deisel, and turbine engines are much more capable
IJ>>>than equivalently sized external combustion engines
IJ>>>(e.g. Sterling cycle) which can burn crude oil.
IJ>>It is worth noting, since he's pointing out not that the car would be
IJ>burning >crude oil, but instead gasoline that was refined in situ on the
IJ>vehicle.
IJ>But this is because of the much greater capabilities of engines requiring
IJ>refined fuel. An anti-matter powered drive would not such a performance
IJ>benefit over a fusion drive, as far as we can tell so far.
Actually, I believe the greater power is directly due to greater energy
stored in the fuels, If I recall..
In fact, I seem to recall also reading that once they began refining
Gasoline, they also had to _redevelop_ their engine-materials to hold up for
a longer period..
--- Pete
Peter....@Hal9k.com
"I'm Heavily Armed; Easily Irritated; and Outa' Thorazine!"
---
þ CMPQwk #1.42-R1þ UNREGISTERED EVALUATION COPY
PETER VASSOFF
On 12/14/95, STEFAN E says:
[heavy snippage..]
SE>Of course, this energy source would also eliminate almost any need to
SE>fight over territory, or just about anything else. You could terraform
SE>any world you came across, melt useless planets into raw materials,
SE>build deep-space habitats with artificial suns . . . . etc.
SE>The only thing left to fight over would be weird ideological stuff.
No kidding! Although, in Brin's books there are assorted races/species
that fight over and *because* of _exactly_ those reasons.. Granted that they
*can* convert anything to anything.. Is it cost effective for *every* ship,
Fleet or Planet? Hmm... Maybe it only works for sufficiently advanced
planets with credit to spend? Maybe it is only economical for large fleets
or "Expeditionary Forces"?
Erik Max Francis
> In article <4alvg4$d...@idefix.eunet.fi>,
> Mika Huurre <Mika....@mediabase.fi> wrote:
> >
> >Just popped into my mind (about energy sources) that in A.C.Clarke
> >book "The Songs of Distant Earth" featured non-FTL-drive which snipped
> >energy from sub-atomic energy foam (or something like that).
>
> To amplify a little bit:
>
> At the quantum level, the fabric of the space-time continuum is a sea
> of constantly appearing and annhilating virtual particle pairs. The
> energy for their creation comes from their eventual annihilation; find
> a way to extract real, usable energy from this flux, and you have a
> handle on the secrets of creation, much less a energy source.
You've also broken energy conservation laws, which is thought to be
impossible. Creating a device which would extract useful energy out of
quantum foam is exactly as unphysical as building a perpetual motion
machine.
Even with virtual particle-antiparticle pair creation from the
uncertainty relation, energy must still be conserved when all is said and
done. That means that the particle-antiparticle pair must either
recombine (returning their energy back to the uncertainty relation) or,
if one particle becomes real (and thus assumes a positive energy), the
other virtual particle must remain virtual and assume a negative energy
of equal and opposite magnitude to maintain energy conservation. This is
how Hawking radiation works: a real particle escapes, and a virtual
particle falls in. The virtual infalling particle must assume a negative
energy to make up for the real energy assumed by the real particle when
it escapes, and so it carries negative energy into the hole -- net
result, black hole loses mass and a particle is emitted from the vicinity
of its horizon.
> Unless you could make a pure photon drive, you would still need to have
> reaction mass. It could be anything, including any hydrogen you find
> lying around. OTOH, you might be able to make your own reation mass.
> If you have unlimited energy, you can cook up any element you want.
If you can extract usable energy from the quantum foam, creating a photon
drive is easy enough; after all, a flashlight is a suitable photon drive,
presuming it's big enough.
Besides, you could use the particle-anitparticle pairs themselves for
reaction mass.
Erik Max Francis, &tSftDotIotE && uuwest!alcyone!max, m...@alcyone.darkside.com
San Jose, California, U.S.A. && 37 20 07 N 121 53 38 W && the 4th R is respect
H.3`S,3,P,3$S,#$Q,C`Q,3,P,3$S,#$Q,3`Q,3,P,C$Q,#(Q.#`-"C`- && 1love && folasade
_Omnia quia sunt, lumina sunt._ && GIGO Omega Psi && http://www.spies.com/max/
"The Creator Raven looked at Man and was . . . surprised to find that this
strange new being was so much like himself." -- Eskimo creation myth
Jeff Suzuki
: Just popped into my mind (about energy sources) that in A.C.Clarke
: book "The Songs of Distant Earth" featured non-FTL-drive which snipped
: energy from sub-atomic energy foam (or something like that).
: It was also used in small shuttle which utilized atmosphere gases as a
: propellant (didn't burn them, just thrusted - I think).
: Also, there were some referencies into real studies about subject.
: Could this resolve energy problem (and be reasonable realistic)?
: Although strategies concerning protecting energy production facilities
: (and supply lines they require) could provide more interesting and
: challenging situation.
Unfortunately it violates one of those little known laws of
science...you know, conservation of energy...;-)
Actually, there are some _very_ weird (but physically permissible, so
far as we know) theories that allow one to get virtually infinite
energy from apparently nothing. Unfortunately, most of them require
conditions that this universe hasn't seen since 10-43 seconds A.B.B.
Jeffs