Hello, Spacefolk! Long time no see!
I just picked up the first 3 books of "The Expanse" by S.A. Corey, right after viewing the explosive finale to the Syfy Channel's television series by the same name. An outstanding show with memorable characters and - finally - no f*cking "warp drive.... people can walk around on their ship because they can burn/accelerate at a constant g-level, which affords both comfort and quick travel times throughout the solar system. Can't WAIT for one of the Resident Add-On Geniuses who regularly haunt this place to create a model of the MCRN "Tachi" (later rechristened the "Rocinante" by it's new crew, who use it as a lifeboat to escape disaster). Powered by this "Epstein Drive", and with the aid of specially formulated steroidal cocktail injections ("the juice") into the crew, they can endure & survive brief periods of very high acceleration (up to 25 g's !!!), reducing travel times to the closest planets to mere hours or days.
I picked up the first 3 books of the series to tide me over until Season 3 is released in 2018. The closest I could come to finding a similarly sized add-on ship was Stevcast's nice "Annie_V Frigate", so I've been modifying the .ini/cgf files to soup her up a bit. Was able to get to Mars orbit in about 20 hours @ 25gs. Of course, now I can fit into my old school jacket after being pressed that hard into the crash-couch.
I'm also fondly revisiting Larry Niven "Known Space" series. Would love to see a Syfy-treatment of "Ringworld", or "Protector".
Nice to see you all, and to see that interest remains in Orbiter.
Best wishes,
ZCochrane