Downports and landing non streamlined ships.

[ottarrus]

I beg to differ, @Arkathan .
95% of Federation Starships qualify as Dispersed Structures, from the NX Enterprise to the current Sovereign-class. The ship designers have everything is spread out on pylons to three different points of stress weight [main hull, secondary hull, two to four engine nacelles].
But that's alright. > Star Trek ships are not designed for, and should not be confused with, the OTU. <
You can probably figit a Star Wars ship into something High Guard-esque, but Star Trek vessels are designed with using an entirely different set of physics and are built according to a wholly different set of design criteria.
Star Trek uses an entirely different progression of technologies to arrive at their current date of 2409. For crying out loud, the basic power plant for a Starfleet ship is antimatter, which isn't available until TL 21+ in the OTU. And antimatter power systems are what makes warp speeds possible at all. Cochrane could get the Phoenix up to Warp 1 using fusion, but he couldn't sustain the speed for more than a few minutes and by the time of the Enterprise series, the NX ships were using experimental antimatter power plants.
And the Third Imperium tops out at a VERY new TL 16 [only a VERY few worlds can reach TL 16, not even Capital has it yet] with TL 17 only being discussed in research labs. In 25 years everything we know in the OTU will be a Virus-ridden wasteland. We're literally playing the Twilight of the Imperium in 1105, so all the 'fyoochur tek' speculation is pointless.

 

[Condottiere]

There seem to be two aspects to account for:

1. Gravity

2. Atmospheric conditions

Essentially, external forces.

So, how does constant acceleration work on dispersed structure hull configuration?

 

[Arkathan]

Wings or trusses? That is the question. The fact that they are sleek suggests wings. They are made with the ability to operate in an atmosphere. That suggests close structure, not dispersed. Spread out is not necessarily dispersed
You may not be old enough to remember, but the TOS Enterprise design, with few modification and no active controls used to be a model rocket kit. It flew. Wings. You don't see ISS kits doing that. Dispersed.
Propulsion is irrelevant. Star Trek uses impulse. A reaction drive. Traveller uses grav, allowing movement like a helicopter.
As to future tech, the fact that there is a market for a return to Golden Age and a rejection of Virus, shows that, like Clicky-tech Battletech, unpopular "futures" can safely be ignored.

 

[Condottiere]

Hard to say.

Cables and structs could keep the various components together.

 

[ottarrus]

You're really proposing that landing the Annic Nova or a Chrysanthemum-class DE is the same aerodynamic problem as flying a Fairey Swordfish?
Doing a quick internet search, the carrier landing speed of a 'Stringbag' was roughly 70 miles per hour. This was so you wouldn't tear the aircraft in half when halted by the arresting cable.
Just how long do you think it would take to get Annic Nova down to ground of a Sz 8, Std Atmo world at 70 miles per hour? Hours? A full day maybe?
Or you could.... Just. Use. A. Freaking. Shuttle.

 

[Condottiere]

1. The Stringbag was not renown for it's speed.

2. It got you there and back again, assuming no intensive, accurate anti aircraft fire.

3. The upper wing definitely looks like it's hanging on by a thread, or several.

3. The issue seems to be entering an atmosphere, not planetary gravity.

4. A planetoid has inherent structural integrity, if only because of twenty percent organic hull volume.

5. I've always said dead slow descent.

6. You could always wrap it in a condom, the fuel bladder, which would in theory increase volume, but allow it the slip through the atmosphere like greased lightning.

 

[Arkathan]

Hulls used to include ablative foam for re-entry. Similar to the re-entry kits for space suits - A frame you sprayed foam on and then if you sprayed it correctly, a parachute or flying wing would deploy when you got low and slow enough.
If you didn't spray it correctly, then terminal velocity would limit the size of the impact craters from the charred bits.

 

[Condottiere]

It's got to be affordable.

Which our heat shields aren't.

 

[phavoc]

2nd edition High Guard (page: 69):

Ah, so they have been combined now.

That actually does open up the tech to becoming the same sort of weapon that the Andromedans used in SFB - if you can control the rate of the polarity shift you could shake or rip the object apart from structural failure.

 

[phavoc]

Wings or trusses? That is the question. The fact that they are sleek suggests wings. They are made with the ability to operate in an atmosphere. That suggests close structure, not dispersed. Spread out is not necessarily dispersed
You may not be old enough to remember, but the TOS Enterprise design, with few modification and no active controls used to be a model rocket kit. It flew. Wings. You don't see ISS kits doing that. Dispersed.
Propulsion is irrelevant. Star Trek uses impulse. A reaction drive. Traveller uses grav, allowing movement like a helicopter.
As to future tech, the fact that there is a market for a return to Golden Age and a rejection of Virus, shows that, like Clicky-tech Battletech, unpopular "futures" can safely be ignored.

So long as the structural strength of the hull materials supports the mass within an atmosphere (such as the original Enterprise being in the atmosphere on a few episodes) AND it being able to withstand the additional stress from flying through it, then there's nothing to stop it from being able to operate - but said operations may be limited in their speed and maneuvers due to stress on the parts.

I am old enough to remember those from Estes. But that's not really a fair comparison since the materials you can use for such can easily overcome the mass of the model. The reason you don't see an ISS kits is because they are two entirely different things - both in space, both made by people, and both have people inside of them. But one is meant to move and the other is meant to float in orbit. It's like comparing to eating a freshly picked pumpkin with an apple - both are technically fruits, but that's about the end of the comparisons.

ST drives are reactionless - and they do not follow Newtonian movement, that's been the though process since TOS. Traveller (depending on the version) has fusion drives, grav drives, reactionless drives, and completely unexplained drives - all without dipping into alternate types of drives. And Traveller drives (all of them) use Newtonian movement rules. Again, depending on version, some will separate out lift aspects, some include it as part of the drive, and other completely ignore the topic altogether. Overall the only consistency that Traveller has had rests with all drives operating under Newtonian thrust concepts. The rest is a variable.

MT and virus concepts coincided with a number of other things that happened to Traveller, GDW, the overall RPG market, and Miller. I would agree with you that Virus re-introduction is NOT an inevitability. It actually made for a richer playing environment, but conceptually it did lack a few things. MT never really got a chance to get its feet underneath itself.

 

[Sigtrygg]

The ISS may be a space 'station' but it can and does maneuver in its orbit. It is capable of raising its orbit using its own engines or a visiting rocket can give it a push.

 

[phavoc]

The ISS may be a space 'station' but it can and does maneuver in its orbit. It is capable of raising its orbit using its own engines or a visiting rocket can give it a push.

Yes, that's correct. It does have station-keeping thrusters, it can, to a limited extent, boost it's altitude on it's own, and has many times in the past received an altitude bump from a visiting space shuttle or crew capsule.

However it is NOT designed as a vehicle. It's still a station rather than a ship, and it's goal is to orbit the planet and not move around the solar system, let alone leave it.

To be fair, any object in space could theoretically become a space, or even starship - all that requires is thrust away from a gravity well.

 

[Arkathan]

The point was that one is at least partially streamlined, and the other is not.

 

[Condottiere]

This bridge design can be ejected from the ship in an emergency to become a lifeboat for the command crew. The bridge has two weeks of life support and battery power, while emergency thrusters give it basic manoeuvring capabilities, equivalent to Thrust 0. A detachable bridge is even capable of soft–landing on a planetary surface.

 

[Arkathan]

ST drives are reactionless - and they do not follow Newtonian movement, that's been the though process since TOS.

That must be why they call them impulse engines and routinely follow ion trails (propelled from the impulse engines)...

 

[phavoc]

That must be why they call them impulse engines and routinely follow ion trails (propelled from the impulse engines)...

Who knows what kind of "exhaust" a reaction less drive might leave behind. Magical thrust may still leave a physical trail.

It may simply eject ions it because of inherent flaws in the plasma relays that are generally poorly placed throughout ST ships and routinely rupture when the script calls for casualties (as opposed to landing parties and away teams - those they just put in red shirts).

What would Gene say?

 

[Arkathan]

Well he did use the word Impulse...

 

[phavoc]

Well he did use the word Impulse...

Maybe he was just being impulsive?

 

[Condottiere]

Had an epiphany.

Equip the the non streamlined spacecraft with a Black Globe, activate it, and descend through the atmosphere.

Switch it off shortly before landfall.

 

[Sigtrygg]

There is rather a lot of kinetic energy in the atmosphere of a planet...