2nd Ed Ship Design

[rust2]

What's the point of that though?

The outer hull has a greater diameter than the inner hull, and as mentioned one needs a minimum diameter of the spinning hull to avoid serious medical problems.
Making the outer hull the spinning one simply saves volume and material.

 

[fusor]

What's the point of that though?

The outer hull has a greater diameter than the inner hull, and as mentioned one needs a minimum diameter of the spinning hull to avoid serious medical problems.
Making the outer hull the spinning one simply saves volume and material.

Let me illustrate this better:

This is a Lab Ship:

I'm saying that either:

1) the entire ship rotates. The whole thing spins around the central axis. That's "the outer hull spinning". The cutter is at 0g, the ring is at 1g.

Or

2) The entire ship doesn't rotate. Instead, a separate inner hull inside the circular ring (like an inner tube in a bicycle tyre) is what's rotating. This is what I would think of as a "double hull".

In the second case, the inner hull (the internal spinning ring) still has that minimum diameter required to avoid health issues, because its radius is the same as the outer hull.

(granted I'm assuming that this is how a Lab Ship works. For all I know it's got gravity plates in the whole thing and doesn't need to spin at all!).

 

[Condottiere]

 

[fusor]

pic snipped

What does this have to do with anything? Use words please!

 

[Condottiere]

If you assume big ships have cancelled their weight in atmosphere, it would still take quite some force to push them anywhere.

 

[fusor]

If you assume big ships have cancelled their weight in atmosphere, it would still take quite some force to push them anywhere.

Not if their inertia is cancelled too.

In microgravity in space, a 2 ton satellite can still crush someone working on it in a shuttle bay, even though it has very little/no "weight", because its mass is still 2 tons and it has the inertia of a 2 ton object (and is as hard to start or stop moving as one).

If you separate inertia from mass though, then weird things can happen. Now that 2 ton satellite might effectively have a mass of 2 kg and can be moved around like a bag of sugar and won't crush anyone.

 

[Condottiere]

I doubt grav lifters kill inertia.

 

[fusor]

I doubt grav lifters kill inertia.

Then antigrav won't cause ships to be buoyant - it'd just reduce the force pulling them down. It'd mean that slingshot manoeuvres wouldn't work, for example. A ship would fall more slowly because it acts as if it's in lower gravity, but it wouldn't float or rise through at atmosphere because its mass and density would be the same. At least I think that's what should happen if the weight is being reduced, but the mass remains the same.

 

[wbnc]

I doubt grav lifters kill inertia.

after reading the Starship Operators Book I had the impression drive plates work like a very advanced thrusters. no negation of mass, or inertia. basically. they are a very advanced electric rocket.I thin that mongoose can't reference that or even mention it since it is someone else's property. Short of writing their own guide to how spaceships work the are fighting page space issues in their existing books to add these, of so tasty, crunchy tidbits.

so In my own settings, I stipulate Gravity plates that generate artificial gravity create a localized field of pseudo-gravity...they basically create tiny nanoscale bubbles of compacted space that act like a large mass. if ou step on a plate your foot is in the zone of effect and anchors the body. if you move a few meters away space rapidly unkinks and local gravity is boss again. it also has the role play effect of being very disorienting to newbies. so little paper baggies are always on and, and your feet always feel like your standing in cold water.

an old hand can jump up flip midair and escape the pseudo-gravity, and hang midair if he is particularly graceful. a soldier firing a plasma gun in Psuedo gravity has the anchoring effect of the plates to allow him to absorb recoil without becoming a flying projectile himself. of course, he can do a fip and fire, to propel himself if he wishes.

the quirks of Pseudo-gravity justifies the presence of acceleration couches and such in my setting rather than the inertial compensators al la star trek. Bridges and cockpits have more advanced systems that do that can protect the crew from harsh accelration forces to a limited degree.But then again I like the crunchy how does it work stuff.

Gravitc drives produce far more otent pinpoinst of compressed or expanded spacetime which pushes the ship away fromm teh center of the field..millions of microscopic points work against pusher plates to force teh ship to surf the event horizon of these points and move...one setof points expands and pops another set forms and repeates the process. the ship is literally surfing a moving shock wave of expanding spacetime whihc s pushing agiant reinfrced plates on the structure.

a large ship like a destroyer or dreadnought produces a serious gravity wake of distortions that isa bit like hittingthe wake of a batteship in a speed boat...small craft have to avoid it..or they can use their own gravity wake to foul up a small craft that gets too close.

 

[-Daniel-]

a large ship like a destroyer or dreadnought produces a serious gravity wake of distortions that isa bit like hittingthe wake of a batteship in a speed boat...small craft have to avoid it..or they can use their own gravity wake to foul up a small craft that gets too close.

Interesting idea. Use the wake as a weapon against small craft.

 

[wbnc]

a large ship like a destroyer or dreadnought produces a serious gravity wake of distortions that isa bit like hittingthe wake of a batteship in a speed boat...small craft have to avoid it..or they can use their own gravity wake to foul up a small craft that gets too close.

Interesting idea. Use the wake as a weapon against small craft.

from rules I worked up for racing pods...

Spoiling:
This is a technique similar to blocking the spoiling pilot uses his atmospheric OR gravitic wake to inhibit a pilot close behind him to spoil another racer the spoiling pilot must have a lead point count within two points of the target, and give up any lead points he may have accumulated during that segment. Instead any lead points the pilot may have accumulated are applied as negative modifiers to the trailing pilots piloting check.

in general usage, the pilot makes a piloting check, and any effect he gains, or if an opposed check, any points he rolls higher than the opposing pilot, is used as a negative modifier to the opposing ships maneuvers or attacks until the ships next turns due to the turbulence...of course they have to be within adjacent range in the case of small craft, or close range for larger ships. I would say a Ref can apply some serious mods if the size of the two ships are grossly unequal such as a dreadnought vs a Fighter the fighter is just flat out of luck if he gets caught in the drive wake of a dreadnought.

 

[-Daniel-]

in general usage, the pilot makes a piloting check, and any effect he gains, or if an opposed check, any points he rolls higher than the opposing pilot, is used as a negative modifier to the opposing ships maneuvers or attacks until the ships next turns due to the turbulence...of course they have to be within adjacent range in the case of small craft, or close range for larger ships. I would say a Ref can apply some serious mods if the size of the two ships are grossly unequal such as a dreadnought vs a Fighter the fighter is just flat out of luck if he gets caught in the drive wake of a dreadnought.

This would make for some interesting tactical choices. Do I send my fighters to attach an area that is a weakness on a ship knowing they will then get caught in the gravity wake or do I hold them bake and just attack other areas of the ship so they will not get damaged or thrown around by the wake?

 

[wbnc]

in general usage, the pilot makes a piloting check, and any effect he gains, or if an opposed check, any points he rolls higher than the opposing pilot, is used as a negative modifier to the opposing ships maneuvers or attacks until the ships next turns due to the turbulence...of course they have to be within adjacent range in the case of small craft, or close range for larger ships. I would say a Ref can apply some serious mods if the size of the two ships are grossly unequal such as a dreadnought vs a Fighter the fighter is just flat out of luck if he gets caught in the drive wake of a dreadnought.

This would make for some interesting tactical choices. Do I send my fighters to attach an area that is a weakness on a ship knowing they will then get caught in the gravity wake or do I hold them bake and just attack other areas of the ship so they will not get damaged or thrown around by the wake?

Oh yeah I have had two players use those gravity wakes to great effect, including using the wake of a larger ships, wake to hide their scout.Since I rule that a ships drives are noisy as heck on the EM frequencies and screw up radar as well...a radar pulse hitting a gravitic distortion really messes with accuracy. they just rode out the buffeting and paid for the repairs when they suffered some damage but a load of illegal goods worth of credits were well worth the repair bill.

Of course it cuts both ways, they have had a "freighter" suddenly turn into a Pirate freighter and three heavy fighters...can you say "kick the cargo and hope that's all they want"

 

[-Daniel-]

Of course it cuts both ways, they have had a "freighter" suddenly turn into a Pirate freighter and three heavy fighters...can you say "kick the cargo and hope that's all they want"

:lol:
Sucks to lose cargo like that, but if ti keeps you alive and in your ship, well it is worth it. :mrgreen:

 

[wbnc]

Of course it cuts both ways, they have had a "freighter" suddenly turn into a Pirate freighter and three heavy fighters...can you say "kick the cargo and hope that's all they want"

:lol:
Sucks to lose cargo like that, but if ti keeps you alive and in your ship, well it is worth it. :mrgreen:

Some days you get the bear, some days the bear gets you.

On advantage I have had is that I was god friends with an EW operator and one was a submarine sonar operator, all those dirty trick can be modified into a game if you consider the variables, and the rules set is flexible enough.

 

[wbnc]

I don't (Snip).

I am quite aware it's not canon. Someone expressed interest I replied...now is there something you would like to discuss concerning 2e ship construction?

 

[-Daniel-]

I don't think that what people do in their own campaigns is really helping a 2nd Ed Ship Design thread. None of the canonical descriptions of grav drives or thruster plates involve leaving a physical wake (there's an alternative contragrav tech in FF&S that does, but that doesn't apply to the canonical setting).

I believe we should use care confusing the 2ed rules with the 3I setting. The rule set and the background fluff are two different things.


As for wbnc's ideas, I think they are interesting enough to explore both the ideas and to see how they could be folder into the other 2ed ship design rules. Back on Topic now eh? :mrgreen:

 

[fusor]

I believe we should use care confusing the 2ed rules with the 3I setting. The rule set and the background fluff are two different things.

So what does HG 2e say about it, if anything? This is pretty much both rules and 'fluff' - if the background says that it works a certain way then the rules should reflect that, and that in turn will affect how the setting works. I'm just going with the previous canonical explanation if there's none in the current edition.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

I want to say THANKS for the deckplans. I most especially want to thank you for making them hi-res.

I printed out the Scout/Courier on 24x36" paper and the lines were still crisp and clean!

SO VERY HAPPY!

 

[wbnc]

One thing I am noticing about the 2e setup. When I have a few extra tons of stuff to pack into a hull, simply adjusting the hull volume and drives by a few percentage points lets me cram that extra ton or so in nicely. Especially when building smaller ships Overall I'd say this set up is far friendlier to small craft and sub 500-ton vessels.