@Robert_Brandt@spacey.space
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Robert_Brandt

@Robert_Brandt@spacey.space

Author and Publisher

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KosmicRPG

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bradjmurray, to random
@bradjmurray@dice.camp avatar

If you need to roughly estimate gravity for a Traveller world, the world (size/8)^3 will do I think.

Robert_Brandt,
@Robert_Brandt@spacey.space avatar

@bradjmurray Also this table

scalzi, to random
@scalzi@mastodon.social avatar

Okay, now I've read the Barkley/Sanford report on the fracas involving the 2023 Hugo Awards and the decision to remove eligible finalists from the ballot. My opinion: the 2023 Hugo administrators perpetrated a fraud and the Hugo Award is in a very bad moment. What happens next determines its future. I have a piece over on my site going into my thoughts in some detail:

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2024/02/15/the-2023-hugo-fraud-and-where-we-go-from-here/

Robert_Brandt,
@Robert_Brandt@spacey.space avatar

@scalzi So the Chinese fans put on a huge expensive gala for science fiction fans, and westerners ruined it. I'm disappointed, though not surprised, I know we have a lot of problematic elements in our community. Just the other day I saw someone euphemistically referring to a holocaust denier as having "brain worms".

nyrath, to random
@nyrath@spacey.space avatar

https://silverarmpress.com/why-i-use-point-crawls-more-than-hex-crawls/

Robert_Brandt,
@Robert_Brandt@spacey.space avatar

@nyrath Solis is sandboxy, though most point crawls, not that I don't think hexes are cool ;)

nyrath, to random
@nyrath@spacey.space avatar

The Scarcity of the Long Term

The chief hurdle in constructing a Death Star is not the energy, materials, or even knowledge needed. It’s the long time needed. A society can change their mind mid-way over centuries, and simply move on. The galaxy is likely strewn with abandoned Half-a-Death Stars.

https://kk.org/thetechnium/the-scarcity-of-the-long-term/

Robert_Brandt,
@Robert_Brandt@spacey.space avatar

@nyrath I think of cities in space, and then compare them to cities on Earth, many are very old, yet always in a state of construction. In my setting the Dark Forest is replaced by Eisenhower's quote: “This world of ours… must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.”

Robert_Brandt,
@Robert_Brandt@spacey.space avatar

@maxthefox @nyrath In Solis I think that if power outstrips ethical development, the civilization will likely destroy itself. So that logically the ultra powerful civilizations, are highly ethical by nature.

nyrath, to random
@nyrath@spacey.space avatar

US army cancels the Fara helicopter program, after seeing what the Ukrainian army can do with reconnaissance drones.

https://breakingdefense.com/2024/02/army-cancels-fara-helicopter-program-makes-other-cuts-in-major-aviation-shakeup/

Robert_Brandt,
@Robert_Brandt@spacey.space avatar

@nyrath @JVWest I have this, I have vague memories of mixing it with ogre/gev

Robert_Brandt,
@Robert_Brandt@spacey.space avatar

@nyrath @JVWest Nice finds, thanks!

nyrath, to random
@nyrath@spacey.space avatar

A superhabitable planet is a hypothetical type of exoplanet or exomoon that may be better suited than Earth for the emergence and evolution of life.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superhabitable_planet

Robert_Brandt,
@Robert_Brandt@spacey.space avatar

@nyrath Lichen has survived on the outside of the ISS. Life is just chemistry. I think that by life, people want intelligent aliens, though for us, we will likely be extinct soon as part of our natural cycle, so that there is only this few thousand year window. There will still be life, though what was will never come again. Sort of what Kubrick noticed, we exist in inestimable moments. However interesting it is to dream of other people, in other places.

Robert_Brandt,
@Robert_Brandt@spacey.space avatar

@maxthefox @nyrath Hopes and dreams are important, it is why I say my setting is optimistic

Robert_Brandt,
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@maxthefox @nyrath “It has often proved true that the dream of yesterday is the hope of today and the reality of tomorrow.”
― Robert H. Goddard

nyrath, to random
@nyrath@spacey.space avatar

In the scifi TV series The Expanse, physical money is illegal. You must use bank cards or credit cards. Which makes it difficult to purchase anything illegal, such as controlled substances or paying a bribe.

So in The Expanse illegal transactions are done with casino chips.

https://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/money.php#illegalcash

Robert_Brandt,
@Robert_Brandt@spacey.space avatar

@nyrath Bribes can also be gifts too, and there was the 60 minutes on the senator from Alaska, and how he would have the oil companies give him art from local artists, one artist changed the price of a work, from $6k to $90k before they bought it. In the government is principled, except corrupt so they expect some corruption, just not let it get out of hand. Physical currency exists, though most currency still exists on ledgers.

Robert_Brandt,
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@nyrath @tkinias @cstross RPG's are necessarily gamist in that regard as nobody wants to do the commercial side where you are bookkeeping. Even as an engineer I had to go back to school and get a business degree for the managerial accounting one has to do. I mean cash would be weird at that level. Even adding a few months to the accounts receivable side would not change things too much.

nyrath, to random
@nyrath@spacey.space avatar

Lasers or longbows?: a paradox of military technology.

https://search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/ielapa.201008920

Robert_Brandt,
@Robert_Brandt@spacey.space avatar

@nyrath Australia indeed is probably concerned, war today is same as ww1 how many people one can put in the line, and how many shells, HE, one can put on target. Which on both fronts they are deficient to do.

Robert_Brandt, to random
@Robert_Brandt@spacey.space avatar

A thing that makes it difficult in doing hardish SF in a RPG is that the players will simply ask the GM the results w/o doing the calcs. Which is entirely normal, as that is what people would do in real life is ask the ship's computer. The rub lies in that the computer was an NPC run by me, so I was loading myself up with the extra rules. Lesson: KISS.

nyrath, to random
@nyrath@spacey.space avatar

I just stumbled over this. An artist made an animation of an advanced spacecraft. Apparently in honor of my website he named it after me.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=BMfJqdbBKpU

Robert_Brandt,
@Robert_Brandt@spacey.space avatar

@nyrath I saw this today on fb

Robert_Brandt,
@Robert_Brandt@spacey.space avatar

@nyrath I so heavily curated it when I was there I only see space, science fiction, astronomy type posts; I don't post there anymore. I miss that it seems a lot of accounts have not moved. I guess also this is where I admit that I am more of a space, and SF nerd, and gaming is just another vehicle to indulge that.

nyrath, (edited ) to random
@nyrath@spacey.space avatar

Ultra-safe nuclear thermal rockets using lunar-derived fuel

Boost rocket with no fissionabes into orbit using chemical rockets (ultra-safe)
On the moon, mine fertile thorium.
Refine from regiolith using relative density.
Transmute thorium into fissionables using sky's gamma ray fog
Fuel the rocket with fissionables

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2468896721000604

Robert_Brandt,
@Robert_Brandt@spacey.space avatar

@michael_w_busch @nyrath This is similar to what what I hear from the rocket people they say "it's too energetic".

nyrath, to random
@nyrath@spacey.space avatar

https://www.inverse.com/entertainment/babylon-5-30-year-anniversary

Robert_Brandt,
@Robert_Brandt@spacey.space avatar

@nyrath I watched them both B5 lagged after the shadow war, and ds9 lagged after everything was fighting the jem hadar.

Robert_Brandt, to random
@Robert_Brandt@spacey.space avatar

Another good site for world building https://nss.org/settlement/nasa/
#SpaceSettlement #NationalSpaceSociety

maxthefox, to writing Russian
@maxthefox@spacey.space avatar

Jan 13: Do you like maps? If they feature in your work do you draw them by hand or use an application?

Funny that this question came up on the day I included a map in my latest chapter. It's a map of the Oval (the region where FTL works in Stardust). It's meant to be 3D but it has to be 2D because screens are flat. I made it in paint.net.

See this post for the map itself. WIP of course. https://spacey.space/@maxthefox/111748290737427639

Robert_Brandt,
@Robert_Brandt@spacey.space avatar

@maxthefox This one here I used simbad and others for data, laid out in astrosynthesis, and finished in affinity design and photo. It is for Solis People of the Sun, Kosmic

Robert_Brandt,
@Robert_Brandt@spacey.space avatar

@maxthefox It is difficult, 521 star systems was almost too many. Though the glutton for punishment I am, I have a Gaia DR3 catalog ...

Robert_Brandt,
@Robert_Brandt@spacey.space avatar

@nyrath @maxthefox They are nice maps. I settle on about 15 pcs, though the GAIA DR3 catalog has an insane amount of hits, 100k or so? I was thinking of maybe sectioning off a little area to build up. Though I still have a lot of work to finish right here.

nyrath, to random
@nyrath@spacey.space avatar

How Scientists are Grappling With the Challenges of Sex and Reproduction in Space

It's more complicated than you think.

https://www.ign.com/articles/can-humans-make-babies-in-space-scientists-are-increasingly-determined-to-find-out

Robert_Brandt,
@Robert_Brandt@spacey.space avatar

@nyrath "Humanity has been fundamentally shaped by the gravity of the world we have spent billions of evolving on."
Two words: Birth Canal. The baby's head has to pass through the woman's pelvis, which skeletal changes could effect.

FredKiesche, to random
@FredKiesche@dice.camp avatar

On to Uncharted Stars by Andre Norton. In which I encounter the name of a dive spacer bar that I recall using in my original Traveller campaign (1977).

image/jpeg

Robert_Brandt,
@Robert_Brandt@spacey.space avatar

@nyrath @FredKiesche Norton has so many great ideas for world building, even people adventuring on a planet that one can only see through IR.

adamgreenfield, to random
@adamgreenfield@social.coop avatar

I really appreciate, in spacefaring fiction, when the author has included a diagram of the ship or environment in which the action takes place. MacInnes – so good at furnishing “In Ascension” with vivid, telling description otherwise – hasn’t described the layout of the Nereus in a way that allows me to grasp where the characters are in relation to one another. In another story it might not matter; here it does.

Robert_Brandt,
@Robert_Brandt@spacey.space avatar

@nyrath I use an inflatable ring for artifical gravity, iirc vinge did the same with deepness in the sky. It has the advantage of being a mature technology, stable (not loaded in shear with metal fatigue), and in fail state it doesn't tear apart. Plus one can use the water supply on the outside for harmonic dampening, and a heat sink. People just call them rotational sections, "rings".

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