In space combat, acceleration is key to manoeuvreability, because in the absence of an atmosphere in which you can use fins etc., the only way to change direction is to shoot a burst of acceleration in a different direction. This means that although identifying a ship, tracking it and matching speed with it is very difficult, once you have done so, it's very hard for it to get away or avoid being shot unless it is (a) small, and (b) has high G.
It strikes me that the issue is spaceship acceleration. While over a long period of time, even the humble 1G amounts to a very significant acceleration rate, those first 1 or 2 seconds of acceleration amount to very little. Because of this, it strikes me that ships would benefit from some kind of emergency maneuvre thrusters, some kind of ring around the ship which could be triggered in combat to provide a sudden powerful thrust to the side to boost the usual m-drive. The challenge would be to make this thrust as sensor neutral as possible - a series of rocket thrusters, for example, would be immediately detected by passive sensors, and analysed by the ship's computer, and the new position of the target evaluation almost instantly.
Would the normal grav based m-drive be able to provide this sort of additional manoeuvring ability, and if not is there anything in the Traveller canon that might provide this sort of function?
It strikes me that the issue is spaceship acceleration. While over a long period of time, even the humble 1G amounts to a very significant acceleration rate, those first 1 or 2 seconds of acceleration amount to very little. Because of this, it strikes me that ships would benefit from some kind of emergency maneuvre thrusters, some kind of ring around the ship which could be triggered in combat to provide a sudden powerful thrust to the side to boost the usual m-drive. The challenge would be to make this thrust as sensor neutral as possible - a series of rocket thrusters, for example, would be immediately detected by passive sensors, and analysed by the ship's computer, and the new position of the target evaluation almost instantly.
Would the normal grav based m-drive be able to provide this sort of additional manoeuvring ability, and if not is there anything in the Traveller canon that might provide this sort of function?