“Providing Earth can keep up with the demand for parts.”
Other than stripping the Earth itself (always a bad idea),
where is the metal coming from? The moon? Asteroid mining?
Asteroids, mostly. They haven’t had time or manpower to
start mining larger planets. Asteroids are easier to
mine anyway, you don’t have to dig hundreds of feet down
to reach the veins of ore. I suspect it’s mostly drive
controls and drives that’s the bottleneck, few people
know how to build either, as per security.
Same applies, even for small (control) circuits,
which are a lot and numerous throughout a complex
(space) vehicle. Copper, tin, gold, silver, silicon,
fiberglass…. small amounts x many = a lot.
Asteroid mining would help.
Rare earth elements are much more abundant in the asteroid field
so it’s more about making it on the mining station, since it’s pointless
to bring down the ore to smelt and process and then back up again.
Each Imperial member has a mining station but that is only so fast,
more than one would speed it up but the building them takes time
too. It all funnels back to Earth and the place(s) to build those drives
and drive circuits. I’s say the only other place to build them (for now)
would be Catia, but I doubt they are as secure there as Earth, as yet.
Yes, they’re having all kinds of problems with building and staffing a larger fleet.
More on this later in the comic.
I’m having my own problems. I want to tell entertaining stories, but I want to
explain how things work, as well. Which take up pages that I could be using to
tell the entertaining parts. I don’t want to be one of the lazy writers who use
hand waving and deus ex machina. Although some of those authors are very
successful, at least financially.
I suppose I could do what some of them do, add lots of gratuitous sex. Nah…
There isn’t anything wrong with lore, it makes the whole story rich
and fulfilling, I hate it when, like in ST or SG they would throw in
some technobabble, then some supporting character would use it
to come up with a big solution to save the day. (Or the Carter head
tilt) heh.
There’s a trick I read about from one of the more successful novel writers:
Try to give your “project” way more background than your actually planing on
using in your stories.
You get a deeper understanding of your characters and how they should and
shouldn’t act. You have some obscure references ready for throwing in when
you need them.
And if you ever need to add a few strips of exposition, they might almost write
themselves
(The few times I did try this method I got mixed results, though)
Comments, maybe. But I usually prefer to let my readers speculate. I
get some great ideas that way.
As far as having a directory, that would only work if the directory
could be blocked until a certain page was released, otherwise it would
give too much away too early in the story.
Sort of why I haven’t added to the “Characters” tab, the Catians didn’t
show up until later in the story.
You could add a few lines at the bottom to explain things, but that
couldn’t be a detailed as what you’ve been doing. I like the way it
is, makes me think about it before adding my 2 cents
I need to do that other than 3 am though, it looks like I had just
finished a bottle of JD heh. I’m more of a Seagram’s guy though…
Typical cat, they see food it’s theirs! YOINK! Ah well nice to hear he had that
good of a kill count on that strike, Kinda funny the last one did a cartoon run
away like that!
I would of liked to see more fleets than that, but like anything it take’s time
and they are running out of it.
Naaa, When I was working at that factory, We only got 20 min. lunches
and 10 min. breaks, (up until I got into maintenance, then it was
when/if you can) you learn how to eat/drink fast if you want time for
a quick smoke before the horn sounds. Old habits die hard, people ask
me if I even taste my food sometimes heh. Only time I go slow was when
I was eating ice cream or something very cold, brain freeze sux!
Ok. So the milk carton in her hand is the SAME milk carton that is
on the table by her plate. Errr if I may be so bold, something
suggesting her arm / hand was moving really, Really fast, would
help secure the impression Sorry for the contrary mood.
Nah, she drank it before she grabbed the bacon. If I had a version that
was open, I would have left it on the table. But she tossed it into a
nearby trash can.
I didn’t find it anywhere. The drug pushers are back, most of them
go straight to trash. I don’t know how many Rob is deleting, I’m
deleting about 100 a day or so. Whenever I look, there are so many
(they include so many links that some are as long as a full screen)
that I don’t want to scroll through them, so I just hit the “Empty
Trash” button. If you have more than one link that’s where your
comment went, and it got deleted by accident. Try re-posting it
and I’ll look for it.
“Providing Earth can keep up with the demand for parts.”
Other than stripping the Earth itself (always a bad idea),
where is the metal coming from? The moon? Asteroid mining?
Asteroids, mostly. They haven’t had time or manpower to
start mining larger planets. Asteroids are easier to
mine anyway, you don’t have to dig hundreds of feet down
to reach the veins of ore. I suspect it’s mostly drive
controls and drives that’s the bottleneck, few people
know how to build either, as per security.
Exactly right. It’s electronics and
control systems that are the bottleneck.
More info, coming up later in the story.
Same applies, even for small (control) circuits,
which are a lot and numerous throughout a complex
(space) vehicle. Copper, tin, gold, silver, silicon,
fiberglass…. small amounts x many = a lot.
Asteroid mining would help.
Rare earth elements are much more abundant in the asteroid field
so it’s more about making it on the mining station, since it’s pointless
to bring down the ore to smelt and process and then back up again.
Each Imperial member has a mining station but that is only so fast,
more than one would speed it up but the building them takes time
too. It all funnels back to Earth and the place(s) to build those drives
and drive circuits. I’s say the only other place to build them (for now)
would be Catia, but I doubt they are as secure there as Earth, as yet.
Look up the data on the asteroid 16 Psyche.
You might find it amusing.
The inverse square law applies to the strength of your defenses too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse-square_law
So the core world fleets are still outnumbering them by a wide margin.
Yes, they’re having all kinds of problems with building and staffing a larger fleet.
More on this later in the comic.
I’m having my own problems. I want to tell entertaining stories, but I want to
explain how things work, as well. Which take up pages that I could be using to
tell the entertaining parts. I don’t want to be one of the lazy writers who use
hand waving and deus ex machina. Although some of those authors are very
successful, at least financially.
I suppose I could do what some of them do, add lots of gratuitous sex. Nah…
There isn’t anything wrong with lore, it makes the whole story rich
and fulfilling, I hate it when, like in ST or SG they would throw in
some technobabble, then some supporting character would use it
to come up with a big solution to save the day. (Or the Carter head
tilt) heh.
There’s a trick I read about from one of the more successful novel writers:
Try to give your “project” way more background than your actually planing on
using in your stories.
You get a deeper understanding of your characters and how they should and
shouldn’t act. You have some obscure references ready for throwing in when
you need them.
And if you ever need to add a few strips of exposition, they might almost write
themselves
(The few times I did try this method I got mixed results, though)
You could always explain in the comments or have
a Tech tab on the top like the Characters tab
Comments, maybe. But I usually prefer to let my readers speculate. I
get some great ideas that way.
As far as having a directory, that would only work if the directory
could be blocked until a certain page was released, otherwise it would
give too much away too early in the story.
Sort of why I haven’t added to the “Characters” tab, the Catians didn’t
show up until later in the story.
You could add a few lines at the bottom to explain things, but that
couldn’t be a detailed as what you’ve been doing. I like the way it
is, makes me think about it before adding my 2 cents
I need to do that other than 3 am though, it looks like I had just
finished a bottle of JD heh. I’m more of a Seagram’s guy though…
Typical cat, they see food it’s theirs! YOINK! Ah well nice to hear he had that
good of a kill count on that strike, Kinda funny the last one did a cartoon run
away like that!
I would of liked to see more fleets than that, but like anything it take’s time
and they are running out of it.
Yikes. She moves so fast, it looks like she has
two milk cartons in the first panel.
Naaa, When I was working at that factory, We only got 20 min. lunches
and 10 min. breaks, (up until I got into maintenance, then it was
when/if you can) you learn how to eat/drink fast if you want time for
a quick smoke before the horn sounds. Old habits die hard, people ask
me if I even taste my food sometimes heh. Only time I go slow was when
I was eating ice cream or something very cold, brain freeze sux!
I getcha.
But she STILL has two milk cartons in the first panel.
She needed to drink quickly to use that hand to grab his (her) bacon.
Ok. So the milk carton in her hand is the SAME milk carton that is
Sorry for the contrary mood.
on the table by her plate. Errr if I may be so bold, something
suggesting her arm / hand was moving really, Really fast, would
help secure the impression
Nah, she drank it before she grabbed the bacon. If I had a version that
was open, I would have left it on the table. But she tossed it into a
nearby trash can.
4 oz carton is like 2-3 good swallows if you’re in a rush,
(when I was young) I could down a beer like that, then
“pay” for it after heh.
PC or Mr Stanley: I tried to post a comment
but after I hit “save” it never appeared. ???
I didn’t find it anywhere. The drug pushers are back, most of them
go straight to trash. I don’t know how many Rob is deleting, I’m
deleting about 100 a day or so. Whenever I look, there are so many
(they include so many links that some are as long as a full screen)
that I don’t want to scroll through them, so I just hit the “Empty
Trash” button. If you have more than one link that’s where your
comment went, and it got deleted by accident. Try re-posting it
and I’ll look for it.
i average 60 (30×2) daily.. but , because of a ‘mess’ way back when
i look at each before i delete,, takes a little longer but no “oops”.