(TFT) The Gates thread (not Bill)

[Thorn <edt@dopey.ne.mediaone.net>]

Quite Confused wrote:
> 
> I assume you had this done ahead of time. What are the answers?

Only conceptually.  I actually only got as far as imagining the
expressions on the players' faces when (after feeding them enough clues
to understand) one of the 'glass tubes' in the ancient ruin they were in
began to hum, and some object fell from top to bottom, top to bottom,
top to bottom...  As tube after tube became activated, and the first
suddenly fell silent...  Of course, the tubes don't have to launch
things into _orbit_...


> Neil Gilmore says; Doesn't work.

Probably not.  You'd need magic.  :)


> David Michael Grouchy II first says; The answer is T=1 and G=2.  No. The
> earth will speed away from the gate at 29,750 meters a second.

Depends on where the Earth/Sun interface is, but I conceed the
conceptual existence of such a 'stationary effects' boundary.


> srydzews wants a huge 1 hex wide metel cylander with a vaccume and says it'd
> end up in a geosync orbit.

The 'gas-gate' is a nice idea.  The Geosync orbit depends on Grouchy
boundary, above.


> Confused says; T=20,000, G=18, 48 working days and a geosync orbit at the
> Lagangre points.

LaGrange points?  I never considered Gates to be subject to Gravity. 
But the L-point idea may lead us to a definition for the Grouchy
boundary, since they certainly seem to be a natural demarcation.

> 
> Brett Slocum says; 16,500 transits
> 
> David Michael Grouchy II then says; T = 307,438 and G = 2
> 
> Dave Seagraves says; You guys have /way/ too much time on your hands.
> 
> Several others have problems with frictionless Demons that use 2d dam
> boomerangs.

How would a frictionless Demon _grip_ a boomerang?  Python> "It's not a
question of where he _grips_ it!"


> Please clear this up. Who's nearest to what you were thinking? It's Dave
> Seagraves right?

Dave is pretty darn close.  :)  I was actually thinking that it was
possible, and that the math was going to be annoying, what with
probability of failure on each pass, but failure occuring a minute
later...  So I didn't want to do the math.  <ducking airplanes from the
class>  I think Confused is closest, but I'm just guessing.  I suppose I
owe you guys the doing of the math:

Let's say 10m/s/s for acceleration due to Gravity, and 11km/s for escape
velocity.  That means we need to have 're-dropper' gates running for
1100 seconds, or 18.333 minutes.  With each gate guaranteed for a
minimum of one minute, that's 18 gates, 19 for safety, and 20 for the
'launch' gate.  The initial question asked for days of Masters' effort,
with two apprentices.  This was a bit of a curve ball, since they have
75 ST between them, but only about 25-30 ST at any one time.  The Gate
spell not being a magic item, the ST must all be available at the time
of casting.  50 ST being needed per gate-half, two Masters must be
present, with their four apprentices.  Six magi being 'worth' 150 ST,
each pair of Masters will produce one and one-half gate-pairs per day,
so for 18 gates, 12 pairs of magi.  24 Masters' days.  1800 ST.

So T = irrelevant, G = 18 (or less, but far more than 2), and
Master/Days = 24.

Rule for Gate-pair 1 through 17:

 Gate any object moving at below escape velocity.  (This preserves
'extra' gates)

Rule for Gate-pair 18:

 Gate any object moving faster than an arrow.


After the first launch, we'll have leftover gates (since we burned out
several, but certainly didn't have _every_ gate destabilize on the first
transit).  We recast the used ones, maybe not all of them, if we're
feeling bold (or have a Trance spell handy), and launch again.

BTW, there's no reason that last gate-exit has to point straight up. 
Pointing sideways, in a tavern near an enemy palace, would do just as
well.  :)  As a weapon, we could just drop rocks into the top of this
thing, letting them all accellerate, eventually leaving Gate 18, even if
we'd used up all the other gates.

Scenario seed: Some foreign power has built such a 'Gate Tower', and
sent a mage with a Gate spell to finish the casting of the gate pair for
Gate 18...  Intercept that wizard!  Too easy?  Well, what if they sent
more than one wizard?


Question for the council:  How many half-finished Gates can a wizard
have at one time?
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