there is a significant difference in the G forces a human can withstand for short periods of time vs. sustained ...

Even 4Gs would drain a human if sustained for long (minutes or hours), and that is assuming everyone is straped in.

2Gs or so is about the limit for humans to function normally for days at a time.

8Gs is fine for CERTAIN people (those who can''t take high Gs are not fighter pilots and astronauts), for SMALL periods of time (a few seconds, to a few dozen seconds)

well over 10Gs (I don''t know how many, but it''s between 10 and 50) is fine for near instentaneous contacts, such as hitting a seat belt or airbag.

Also, for anyone looking for some neat sci-fi tactical ideas, cheak out Peter Hamiton''s books - He is very carefull to make it clear that getting attacked when not expecting it is a very dangerous thing in space (because the ships need to manuver at very high Gs, which injurs or kills many crew members who happen to be doing various duties when the alert sounds - and the Captain TRIES to give the crew 3-10 seconds to strap in before moving, but sometimes avioding torpedoes is more important than a few crew members lives). He also makes clear how different combat largely managed by computers is from what humans could assimilate and react to, as well as how manned ships are NOT effective in killing each other compared to what their unmanned (torpedo and drone fighter) counterparts can do - due solely to the obsurdly high Gs such things can do (in his universe 20-40Gs for combat torpedoes and fighters is normal - while manned ships might accelerate at 12Gs under complete computer guidence in a desperate attempt to survive and attack - and all the humans are unconcious).

Dauntless, I guess one thing I want to say is this:

Until a few years ago (maybe 5 to 10), there was this realistic seaming image of Space combat as involving Naval tactics and conventions ... including Dorsal, Starbord, Aft ... terms ... and Squadrons being manned and run by a Captain, etc ...

As time goes on, we are starting to realize that computers far exceed the abilities of humans in any likely combat situation of that scale, and therefore the only human role becomes application of judgement, and other forms of fairly arbitrary decision making. The humans will not have the ability to assimilate information quickly enough to respond to event appropriately ... barking order is just too slow to cut it, when things like mass drivers and ion cannons are involved ...

I really do like naval space simulations, and would love to see a good one ... but I''m starting to feel that they are archaic before there time ... highly stylized fictions / fantasy, no longer truely sci-fi (which is not a good or bad things ... just a label), they are starting to feel like Warhammer 40k and such worlds ...

But I wish you luck non the less. Perhaps you will use my feelings on their lack of accuracy to free you from making the game more realistic than it needs to be, and instead make sure it''s FUN!

I''ve been thinking about the lack of human interaction on board more realistic Naval warships. It''s funny how sci-fi writers have told several stories about AI controlled tanks (the bolo series being the most famous) but as far as I know of there aren''t any about fully AI warships.

I agree that humans will play a small role in the tactical running of ships. I do think they will have a place in terms of damage control and boarding parties (or amphibious operations). I also think they might have some kind of strategic input, but when it comes to the actual operations of the ship then I think it''ll be almost fully AI controlled. From what I understand, when the Columbia blew up the descent flight was pretty much in the hands of computers (whether from Houston, Cape Canaveral or the onboard systems I don''t know). so if flight systems are already so dependent on computer handling, it''s only going to become worse in the future.

And I posit that in my game world "true" AI exists in that computers are not deterministic (i.e. there is a true random element such that if all the variables are known the output is not guaranteed to be known). Therefore ships could essentially be "lifeforms" though we may not think of them as such...or at least vessels containing sentient beings. I''ve always been fascinated by the concept but I also want a place for humans to be amongst the stars as more than just passengers.

Of course in my game world, some augmented humans have mental capacities far exceeding our own, in which case they could possibly vie against AI computer systems (think Mentats from Dune). In fact, the whole concept of augmented humans is central to the plot of the story-based campaign and game world (and technology in general....I''m going for the old Progress vs. Luddite angle with a social twist involving a war not against the "evil" empire or invader, but a civil war instead). So there are some humans in my game world that are very fearsome not just in physical capabilities but in mental capabilties...fearsome enough to make Khan look like a little school girl.

I''ll have to check out Hamilton''s stuff since it''s been recommended by 3 different people now. Fallen Dragon seems the most interesting to me, but the Adamist/Edenist thing also looks interesting in the Night Dawn Trilogy.