Unofficial Errata |
|
Unofficial Errata |
|
Two values are listed for Fuel Processor performance. The Director's Guide states 23 tons per week, while Star Cruiser suggests 1 ton per ten hours, or 16.8 tons per week. I would guess that 2300AD takes precedence.
Using the statistics for the ISV-5 and the SSV-21 in the Director's Guide, the following formulae appears to be in use :-
Number_Of_Solar_Panels = Fuel_Tonnage / ( 200 * Time_In_Weeks)
The suggested value for Time_In_Weeks is 0.24 or one 40 hour stutterwarp discharge. Multiplying the number of solar panels required by 200 divided by the performance of a plant in tons per week gives the the number of plants required.
Also, the statement under the ship listing for the ISV-5 that says that the "complete breakdown from raw to molecular to crystalline hydrogen takes roughly seven hours for the entire 1500 ton fuel supply needed " is obviously incorrect - the ISV-5 has only got a 500 ton fuel capacity and in any case it would need a vast number of fuel processing plants to convert this in just 7 hours.
Star Cruiser's formula for the time taken to reach orbit is odd. It implies that a ship with a large MW output will take longer than a less powerful vessel. My suggestion is the following :-
t = square root of ( rh / ( r + h ) )
Where t is time in minutes to orbit, r is the world radius in kilometres and h is the height of the desired orbit in kilometres from the surface. Note that this equation assumes that the local escape velocity is 11.18 km per second, ( i.e. equal to Earth's ). If not, then scale the time to orbit in proportion.
The table presented in the Director's Guide is a good approximation, but fails to to take into account the fact that the lower weight gases are driven away from the Primary, making gas giants unlikely in the inner system.
I therefore suggest the following formulae, which I derived myself using a basic understanding of Physics and Chemistry, and which seems to work for our solar system. I make no guarrantees that it is the correct formulae to actually use !
MMW = ( 1.3752L ) / ( DDVg )
L is the luminosity of the star ( Sol = 1.0 ), D is the orbital distance of the planet in AU, V is the planet's escape velocity in kilometres per second and g is the planet's acceleration due to gravity in metres per second per second.
As an aside, V is the square root of 2 * gr where r is the planet's radius in metres.
While I was writing some software for 2300AD I compared the Gliese 1969 Catalogue Of Nearby Stars with the data provided in the game. In doing so I noticed a number of errors in the GDW data. See my Near Star List II Project for more information.
The entry Plentiful on the Water Presence table ( Director's Guide page 93 ) should be Ice Sheets as an Ice Ball is ice not water !!
|
| 2300AD |
This page was last updated on the 30th June 1997.
This page is © 1997 Andy Brick except where components are already copyright / trademarked by others in which case their use is not intended as a challenge to such ownership.