(TFT) Re: TFT Digest V3 #994

[Mark Tapley <mtapley@swri.edu>]

At 4:11 -0400 3/16/08, TFT Digest wrote:
> Anyhoo, I'll have to see if Orbits described this way are even feasable.
> If so it'd just be too easy not to include it.

A couple of random thoughts about:

altitude:
	At higher altitude, people *do* move faster; air drag drops 
off with the thinner air. This is a highly non-linear effect; get the 
air thin enough, and they slow *right* down again :-). But for most 
combats, it has the same sense of change as the increasing hex size. 
One might wave one's hands and say they cancel, to first order, for 
altitudes close enough to "sea level".

orbits:
	Although position has some significance in an orbit, it's 
more descriptive to think of things in terms of energy (or at least 
momentum). This is a little like a hockey game; if you know only 
exactly where each player is on the ice at a given instant, you may 
know almost nothing about what's happening in the game at that 
moment. You *also* need to know their speed and direction (velocity 
includes both).
	So a "map" for orbital things isn't adequate to nearly the 
same degree that a "map" for a Melee battle is. You *need* velocity 
to be represented as well, and as I started out to say, energy and 
angular momentum are even more useful measures of the orbit.
	Handling orbital combat in TFT, or even an extension thereof, 
may be stretching the system farther than is wise.

projections:
	Mercator - ew. Any large campaign in a mechanical age really 
needs a better projection. I tend to think any large campaign, 
period, needs a better projection.
	I've seen, but can't remember where, a projection that 
modelled a spherical planet as an icosahedron (? not sure I have the 
right term), composed of 20 equilateral triangles, and then broke 
each triangle down into hexagons.

	Sure hope you are reading this next in a non-proportional font....

	Turn the below map on its side. Each triangle, marked at its 
corners, will remain flat. There are 5 triangles to the left 
("North"; triangles 1-5) and 5 to the right ("South"; triangles 
16-20). Cut out and fold slightly back on triangle boundaries. North 
pole is where all the (originally) left-most triangles meet when they 
are folded together and south pole is where all the right-most 
triangles meet when they are folded together. There are some 
funny-sided "hexagons" to deal with at triangle corners, but that's a 
detail :-) Triangles 6 and 15 meet along their free edges to complete 
the "equatorial" band of triangles.


                __
             __/ 6\__
          __/ 1\__/  \__
       __/  \__/  \__/  \__
    __/  \__/  \__/  \__/ 6\__
   / 1\__/  \__/  \__/  \__/ 7\__
   \__/  \__/  \__/  \__/  \__/16\__
      \__/  \__/ 6\__/  \__/  \__/  \__
         \__/ 1\__/ 7\__/  \__/  \__/  \__
            \__/ 8\__/  \__/  \__/  \__/16\
          __/ 2\__/  \__/  \__/  \__/  \__/
       __/  \__/  \__/  \__/ 7\__/  \__/
    __/  \__/  \__/  \__/ 8\__/16\__/
   / 2\__/  \__/  \__/  \__/ 9\__/
   \__/  \__/  \__/  \__/  \__/17\__
      \__/  \__/ 8\__/  \__/  \__/  \__
         \__/ 2\__/ 9\__/  \__/  \__/  \__
            \__/10\__/  \__/  \__/  \__/17\
          __/ 3\__/  \__/  \__/  \__/  \__/
       __/  \__/  \__/  \__/ 9\__/  \__/
    __/  \__/  \__/  \__/10\__/17\__/
   / 3\__/  \__/  \__/  \__/11\__/
   \__/  \__/  \__/  \__/  \__/18\__
      \__/  \__/10\__/  \__/  \__/  \__
         \__/ 3\__/11\__/  \__/  \__/  \__
            \__/12\__/  \__/  \__/  \__/18\
          __/ 4\__/  \__/  \__/  \__/  \__/
       __/  \__/  \__/  \__/11\__/  \__/
    __/  \__/  \__/  \__/12\__/18\__/
   / 4\__/  \__/  \__/  \__/13\__/
   \__/  \__/  \__/  \__/  \__/19\__
      \__/  \__/12\__/  \__/  \__/  \__
         \__/ 4\__/13\__/  \__/  \__/  \__
            \__/14\__/  \__/  \__/  \__/19\
          __/ 5\__/  \__/  \__/  \__/  \__/
       __/  \__/  \__/  \__/13\__/  \__/
    __/  \__/  \__/  \__/14\__/19\__/
   / 5\__/  \__/  \__/  \__/15\__/
   \__/  \__/  \__/  \__/  \__/20\__
      \__/  \__/14\__/  \__/  \__/  \__
         \__/ 5\__/15\__/  \__/  \__/  \__
            \__/  \__/  \__/  \__/  \__/20\
                     \__/  \__/  \__/  \__/
                        \__/15\__/  \__/
                           \__/20\__/
                              \__/



	I like this pretty well. Make enough hexes per triangle, and 
the singularities hardly matter at all. But I'm not sure it works 
with hex rows going north-south.

At 4:11 -0400 3/16/08, TFT Digest wrote:
> 1. Approximate Earth radius to say 6,360,000 meters.

6,378,137 meters according to one model (a decade old or so, and the 
last 3-4 digits change with every model) mean equatorial radius. Good 
memory, PvK!
--
						- Mark, 210-379-4635
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Large Asteroids headed toward planets
inhabited by beings that don't have
technology adequate to stop them:

				Think of it as Evolution in Fast-Forward.
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