[gurps] TL10 ocean going

[HK piter]

On further reflection.   Things will be slightly different.  Certainly Robert's suggestions hold true.  Submarines will be king (especially in open waters).  Like he said, supercavitation will probably be used on the smaller vessels (but not the larger ones).  With weather like that hydrofoils are *OUT* (their fragile foils will be broken in those huge swells).  Depending on how severe the weather gets, WiGE (Wings in Ground Effect) or Flarecraft as they are often called would be common.  Especially if they *also* had submersible hulls to hide out during really bad storms *under* the storms.  Certainly fast bulk carriers will be WiGE designs.  That technology is really good when carrying capacity, speed and efficiency are needed.

About the weather though.  It all depends if average temperatures on this planet are equivalent to Earth.  If the planet orbits around a cooler star (and is *gasp* tidelocked say around a red subdwarf star), weather will be practically non existant.  In fact in a tidelocked world, habitable ranges will be only in the dim 'twilight' halo at the edges of the dayside and nightside.  The dayside will have a 24/7/365 (assuming an unrealistic identical orbital period equal to earths) hurricane that Earth has never seen the likes of, making life absolutely impossible there.  Likewise on the side of the planet that never sees light, there won't be any photosynthesis, and temperatures will be like the depth of antarctic winters... hovering around -146 degrees fahrenheit (the lowest temperature recorded at Vostok, Antarctica).  In this 'twilight' area of the planet, waves will be calm, and you might even see hydrofoils and definitely will see WiGE technology.

Certainly with all that underwater topography, much of your life will probably go underwater.  Again making small supercavitating subs and larger non-SC subs the majority of your craft.
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Captain Joy 
  To: The GURPSnet mailing list 
  Sent: Friday, February 29, 2008 3:16 PM
  Subject: [gurps] TL10 ocean going


  What would TL10 sea-going vessels be like?  Specifically, on 50 year  
  old TL10(11) colony on a world that has 95% hydrographic coverage?   
  This is a Star Trek (30 years before the original series) universe.  
  I've set the Federation tech level at 11^ with medical tech at 9.
  --
  Captain Joy
  captainjoy at mac.com
  "[Democracy] can only exist until the voters discover that they can  
  vote themselves largesse from the public treasury." --Alexander  
  Tytler (author unverified)

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