Recent content by Robbo

I could live with ships of 5000 tons or smaller. That's about the limit of practicality for deck plans for me. The rules assume speed in hyper is based on your stl drive but what if I base it on something else like the computer software or power plant rating? Either would give the R-drive folks...

I was considering using hyperdrive instead of jump drive in this setting, but the rules as written are a little unclear. They say you move 1 parsec a day per g of drive rating. Does this mean you're thrusting continuously (which would eat rocket propellant) or is it just an initial burst of...

I think that heat shield/no heat shield is a much more understandable distinction than streamlined or distributed hull for what ships can land. A distributed hull ship with an m-drive that can pull 6 g's an't withstand 1-2 g's laterally? How does it evade at full acceleration? Maybe the solution...

Kind of makes you want to rethink grabbing a cutlass and vacc suit and preparing to board the enemy ship! :evil:

If I may venture a little off thread ... the Empire Culture IMTU has Maneuver Drive technology. this was given to them by benevolent aliens when they were around TL 6-7. As a result they leaped into space without ever developing chemical rockets for their space program (missiles are another...

If a maneuver drive does cancel out local gravity then is all that stuff on vectors applied near worlds in HG optional?

I was wondering why R-drives needed a hest shield since they were at least as powerful as MDs. While we're on the subject of acceleration how much thrust do you need to skim a gas giant? I'm guessing 2 g's is bare minimum and 3 g's is comfortable.You need to neutralize 1-2 g's, fight cyclone...

Right! Megatraveller. Thanks. I knew I read that somewhere. That would fit in nicely with putting the Empire around TL 10. Of course I'm probably going with no true reactionless drives. The Empire ships work by pushing or pulling on various planets.

Acceleration couches and g-tanks can compensate for a lot of acceleration short term (like a dogfight). Joe Haldeman's Forever War had crew immersed in liquid fluorocarbons to withstand 10's of gees. They needed some surgical mods too. I'd probably introduce new augments to deal with...

That is one HECK of a chemical drive. For 50% fuel it gives almost a day's acceleration at one gee. You could go to the moon and do a few laps around it then go back to Earth no problem. :D I like the fusion rocket. It could be an analogue to an MD with a fission reactor. I realized that if...

Uhm. Don't the lasers use gravitics to focus their beams over great distances? I remember reading that in FF&S. Is that not canon anymore?

Maybe the M-drives could be half effective within 10 diameters and become very low low thrust beyond 100 diameters. That way an M-drive ship could still boost like mad for a coup[le of days and build up a good velocity for insystem travel, decelerating at its destination world much like an...

Another problem is that the R-drive ships do need a larger power plant for the hyperdrive in the larger ships. So the R-drive fleet might be based on the old battlerider concept, a jump capable ship transports a horde of small fast R-drive fighters with lots of reaction mass. Thanks. What I was...

I'm working on a setting with two human cultures, one is an entrenched and established empire that has M-drives and gravitics but lacks fusion power for ships. The other is a group of newcomers with fusion power plants but no gravitics that use R-drives. The problem is that M-drives in canon...

I think I'll probably go with a whole new universe then. Otherwise I'm looking at a subsector so far away it becomes problematical whether there is a 3I or not. Characters probably wouldn't reach anyplace on official maps without years of travel. Besides I doubt any planet could shield its...