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>From: Jo Jaquinta <jaymin@maths.tcd.ie>
>Subject: Re: C. J. Cherryh List
>Date: Mon, 24 May 93 14:02:00 BST

Onno Meyer writes:
> P.S. Has anybody an order number for this game?
	It went out of print a decade or so ago. I was incredibly lucky
to find the copy I have. I got it for something like $12. The dealer
didn't realise I would have easily paid $40 or more! It was made my
Mayfair games. You could check them out. They might know who still has
copies left.

> But todays rockets spent a huge percentage of their mass to operate
> for shorter periods of time with less acceleration. What kind of 
> exhaust velocity would be required for the carriers?
	I don't think the carriers (or any of their ships) use an
inertial based system. Their fuel, for all intents and purposes, appears
to be water. This looks like they have hydrogen-fusion based power-plants.
They never take on propellant which makes me argue for a inertialess
(i.e. magic) drive.

> If this is correct [boosting up], why are there riderships at all?
> Do I miss some advantage of the ridrships?
	Cherryh says, "[A carrier] may shed its riders, which will travel 
at that speed, although they are not capable of FTL: they are small
ships with a crew of about fifteen, each one equipped and
instrumented to handle the enormous velocities of a carrier,
up to the lightbarrier. They are very sophisticated in electronics
and armaments and any one of them is every bit as
much to be dreaded in attack as the carrier itself: they are _fast_
and their firepower, while less than a carrier's, is sufficient to
destroy a carrier's maneuvering capacity, or to wipe out a
starstation or reduce a planet to the stone age. Riders spread
out from a carrier, and often operate at different speeds so
that their capacity to turn is different. This confuses the
enemy's longscan, (more about this later). When the carrier
is ready to leave the system, it summons its riders which 
limpet themselves to the hull."
	Basically if the dump-turn-boost maneuver is possible for
a carrier it would have to be a special maneuver, when the enemy is
completely off guard. Whereas riders do it all the time.
I also get the impression that dipping in and out of jump-space is 
very noticable.

> One more ridership question: Why are there so many of them?
> in _HB_, someone said "96% retrievability" (sp?).
	Well _HB_ was an earlier stage. Maybe necessity improved their
performance. Cherryh again:
	"and no carrier wants to leave its riders behind if
it can help. Outside of losing fifteen highly trained crewmen
per ship, riders are expensive, and if the situation is bad
enough that the carriers are running, the riders are likely
to be overwhelmed too.
	Union, however, has lost quite a few riders, while Mazian's
fleet, much more reluctant to leave riders, has kept most 
of its own, as witness the fact that most Company Fleet ships
have their original riders: i.e., those riders that were lost were
destroyed with their carriers, not left behind.
	In riderships particularly, Union suffers from less skilled 
personnel than the Company Fleet has."
	So basically, the Fleet is ultra-conservative with respect
to looking after it's riders.

				Jo

PS: Sorry for the delay on the Kif article. I may get time tonight.