[gurps] TL10 ocean going

[David Scheidt]

On Fri, Feb 29, 2008 at 6:27 PM, Roger Burton West <roger at firedrake.org> wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 29, 2008 at 03:16:32PM -0800, Captain Joy wrote:
>  >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.
>
>  On a world like that, I'd expect to see some very massive storms - so
>  the big ships may well be submarines, with nuclear or chemical power
>  plants depending on size. I seem to remember that supercavitation is
>  fairly practical at TL10, so the small fast ones will use that.
>
>  Of course, they may have weather control up and running, in which case
>  they might go for surface ships of various sorts - SWATH, perhaps.
>
>

And it's straw tek, so it's more likely they're TL8 ships, with some
fancy gadgets, where the plot demands they break.

In reality, what you'd see (on earth) will be a continuation of the
current trend towards bigger ships.  Bigger ships are faster for a
given energy input.  TL10 gets fusion power, so the ships will be as
big as can fit through the various bottle necks.  (In the 21st
century, that's the size of a ship that can fit through Suez.)


-- 
David Scheidt
dmscheidt at gmail.com