Fred
Retired Staff
I'll agree that passage of time is one nebulous value in the SARP. There is, of course, the issue of story pacing, but another element I feel hinders the IC time is the speed at which the plotships go.
Take the Sakura-class ship (the fastest KFY warship) : The Sakura Gunships can move at 300 000c with their CDD, which allows them to cross over 10 light years in something like 2 hours. This is fast, really fast! The closest science fiction analog I can find is the Enterprise-E (from the Star Trek Nemesis movie) that goes at a 199 516 c... and that's at it's top speed of Warp 9.9999!
Alternatively, the SA's ships possess hyperspace fold drives. This allows them to move even faster in a linear path and a warm up period to 'jump'... that takes a minute. Then, off they are, crossing several light years through the span of a minute... the Sakura gunship itself crosses 20 LY in a minute; making that 2 hour trip for a CDD last only 30 seconds.
Both those technology would allow a SA captain to leave the capital, go explore an uncharted system 40 LY away, make any sentient species submit to YSE rule and be back to Yamatai in time for supper.
Not to mention the tremendously high speeds the SARP's ships go at makes the use of the AS-7 torpedoes (those go at 17 532c - that's 2 LY/hour) somewhat doubtful since the ships don't really need to shoot them down : all they have to do is steer clear of the way. Easy really when you move at a speed that makes the torpedo look as if it's crawling toward you slower than molasse.
However, the main impact I feel the powerful CDD/fold technology do is to remove the possibility of travelling downtime, given that a ship can reach a destination within just a couple of minutes. It offers no time period in which the characters can carry out routine duties, train, do research. Of course, plotships are generally always busy - but the pacing the plotships (at least the Sakura) are put into are very hectic (making for a storyline to suffers from the hurry-up-and-wait syndrome).
The YSS Sakura's science officer, Miles Gunn, has done work to dvelop some new technologies : the NH-S miniature neko and a trend of 'new' laser scalpel. Both were submitted to the Ketsurui Zaibatsu and he was handsome paid for his efforts, yet, when I find myself looking over the time Miles had since when he became active (Sakura Mission 2) and now... the amount of free time Miles had to actively research to create his new bio-engineered creature (even if he was going from a NH-27/NH-12 template) would have only been several hours - probably less than a day total. I understand he's a genius and all, but not only do I feel making bio-genetically created beings take longer... but the span of time he spent on it really devalues his work as well. If he tookonly a few hours with the concept of a NH-12 put up to NH-27 specifications... anyone with a background as a bio-geneticist would have been able to do the same... or probably better if they invested more time in it; making Miles' accomplishment quite lackluster.
Not that Miles isn't competent in his field, but having the proper time to work on such research would show well for him, just like having Kotori be given downtime to do on-site officer training would help her as well. Of course, I'm not saying that downtime should be played at length either - we're all here to roleplay our characters through interesting events... not just watch them putter around. I feel it would be easy the plot GM ask his players what they intend to do in the meantime, make a narration to speed past those few events - an so be able to span days, weeks - heck, even months that way if needed without really crimping any storylines. It would conveniently give the in-character personas some time to breathe too.
Furthermore, another point I feel the high speed hinders is the concept of deep space exploration. Like the example above shows, you can leave, go do some 'deep space exploration' and be back in a scant few hours. It really gives the concept of long-range operation a crimp. Of course, the starmap has been widened considerably... but even then, it only takes 4 minutes for a Sakura-class gunship to cross over 80 LY... I'm not saying that deep space voyages should take everybit as long as the pirate boats Wes oh-so-loves should... but evidently, I feel some passage of time would really add dept when dealing with space travel.
Take the Sakura-class ship (the fastest KFY warship) : The Sakura Gunships can move at 300 000c with their CDD, which allows them to cross over 10 light years in something like 2 hours. This is fast, really fast! The closest science fiction analog I can find is the Enterprise-E (from the Star Trek Nemesis movie) that goes at a 199 516 c... and that's at it's top speed of Warp 9.9999!
Alternatively, the SA's ships possess hyperspace fold drives. This allows them to move even faster in a linear path and a warm up period to 'jump'... that takes a minute. Then, off they are, crossing several light years through the span of a minute... the Sakura gunship itself crosses 20 LY in a minute; making that 2 hour trip for a CDD last only 30 seconds.
Both those technology would allow a SA captain to leave the capital, go explore an uncharted system 40 LY away, make any sentient species submit to YSE rule and be back to Yamatai in time for supper.
Not to mention the tremendously high speeds the SARP's ships go at makes the use of the AS-7 torpedoes (those go at 17 532c - that's 2 LY/hour) somewhat doubtful since the ships don't really need to shoot them down : all they have to do is steer clear of the way. Easy really when you move at a speed that makes the torpedo look as if it's crawling toward you slower than molasse.
However, the main impact I feel the powerful CDD/fold technology do is to remove the possibility of travelling downtime, given that a ship can reach a destination within just a couple of minutes. It offers no time period in which the characters can carry out routine duties, train, do research. Of course, plotships are generally always busy - but the pacing the plotships (at least the Sakura) are put into are very hectic (making for a storyline to suffers from the hurry-up-and-wait syndrome).
The YSS Sakura's science officer, Miles Gunn, has done work to dvelop some new technologies : the NH-S miniature neko and a trend of 'new' laser scalpel. Both were submitted to the Ketsurui Zaibatsu and he was handsome paid for his efforts, yet, when I find myself looking over the time Miles had since when he became active (Sakura Mission 2) and now... the amount of free time Miles had to actively research to create his new bio-engineered creature (even if he was going from a NH-27/NH-12 template) would have only been several hours - probably less than a day total. I understand he's a genius and all, but not only do I feel making bio-genetically created beings take longer... but the span of time he spent on it really devalues his work as well. If he tookonly a few hours with the concept of a NH-12 put up to NH-27 specifications... anyone with a background as a bio-geneticist would have been able to do the same... or probably better if they invested more time in it; making Miles' accomplishment quite lackluster.
Not that Miles isn't competent in his field, but having the proper time to work on such research would show well for him, just like having Kotori be given downtime to do on-site officer training would help her as well. Of course, I'm not saying that downtime should be played at length either - we're all here to roleplay our characters through interesting events... not just watch them putter around. I feel it would be easy the plot GM ask his players what they intend to do in the meantime, make a narration to speed past those few events - an so be able to span days, weeks - heck, even months that way if needed without really crimping any storylines. It would conveniently give the in-character personas some time to breathe too.
Furthermore, another point I feel the high speed hinders is the concept of deep space exploration. Like the example above shows, you can leave, go do some 'deep space exploration' and be back in a scant few hours. It really gives the concept of long-range operation a crimp. Of course, the starmap has been widened considerably... but even then, it only takes 4 minutes for a Sakura-class gunship to cross over 80 LY... I'm not saying that deep space voyages should take everybit as long as the pirate boats Wes oh-so-loves should... but evidently, I feel some passage of time would really add dept when dealing with space travel.
