Engineering!

[AndrewW]

If you wanted a space craft with very high agility, you could probably
build it with rotating engine pods attached to the hull, thus enabling it to
create thrust in every direction you want by turning the pods accordingly.
In my opinion this would make more sense for a space fighter than the
usual configuration with the engine at one end of the craft.

Ah just use thrust vectoring. Could have one that rotates 90 degrees to vector the thrust downward for VTOL operation.

 

[Woas]

Whoops, I apologize. I typed dTonnage above, talking about putting engines outside of the ship. What I meant was common 'cargo' tonnage or 'squares' on a deckplan. A 10 ton engine still counts toward the total of the ship and would effect the maneuverability and engine class requirements. What I'm thinking is that it would free up those 10 tons of cargo space, at least in so far as the deck plan is concerned.

Thoughts? Or still just volume?

 

[GypsyComet]

Still just volume.

Even if the cargo bay has 64 squares on the deckplan, if the stats say 30 tons of cargo, its 30 tons of cargo and no more.

 

[rust]

Thoughts? Or still just volume?

Imagine you have a 200 ton ship with 20 tons of cargo space and a 10
ton engine. You take the engine out of the engine room, convert the en-
gine room to additional cargo space, and attach the engine to the outside
of the hull.
Now you have a 210 ton ship with 30 tons of cargo space.

 

[rust]

Ah just use thrust vectoring. Could have one that rotates 90 degrees to vector the thrust downward for VTOL operation.

Basically, yes.

However, I think that it would be easier to build engine pods which could
rotate up to 360 degrees each and in opposite directions (e.g. to spin the
craft around) than to construct a vectored thrust system able to do this.

 

[AndrewW]

Ah just use thrust vectoring. Could have one that rotates 90 degrees to vector the thrust downward for VTOL operation.

Basically, yes.

However, I think that it would be easier to build engine pods which could
rotate up to 360 degrees each and in opposite directions (e.g. to spin the
craft around) than to construct a vectored thrust system able to do this.

Maybe. But then you have to move a lot more. If you just vector the thrust there is less required.

 

[Zowy]

Here is a 300 DTon Tail-Sitter that I like to use, with a few changes.

 

[atpollard]

The reason that Real World tail-sitters tend to be tall and thin is to minimize air resistance - like a thin bullet being faster than a fat bullet.

 

[simonh]

Maybe. But then you have to move a lot more. If you just vector the thrust there is less required.

How do you vector gravitic thrust? Just curious.

There are a lot of assumptions being made in this thread about what is or isn't possible. Vary the assumptions, and you get different results in terms of what makes an optimal engineering approach.

One of the luxuries we have with an SF setting is that you can actualy come up with an engineering solution you like, and then construct assumptions about the technology to justify it. Maybe gravitic thrust can't be vectored, so you need to physically re-orient the drive, or perhaps you can so you don't. Just pick what you want for your campaign.

Simon Hibbs

 

[simonh]

Imagine you have a 200 ton ship with 20 tons of cargo space and a 10
ton engine. You take the engine out of the engine room, convert the en-
gine room to additional cargo space, and attach the engine to the outside
of the hull.
Now you have a 210 ton ship with 30 tons of cargo space.

You also have to add protective fairings to the engines, extend load-bearing structural extensions to the ship to mount the pods and also extend the power conduits. The engines are also now much more vulnerable to damage and can't be maintained or repaired from within the craft.

Simon Hibbs

 

[EDG]

Weird engineering question:

Let's say that somehow, due to gravitic jiggerypokery, the mass of the ship suddenly increased by a few hundred percent (2-5 times, lets say). Nothing else changes - only the mass of everything inside the ship changes (so volume remains the same), and then it rapidly drops back down to normal.

Would this have any effect on the ship? The effective density of everything in the ship also has to increase with the mass (since the volume stays the same) but would that necessarily do anything to its ability to bear the extra load of the ship's increased mass?

 

[Gee4orce]

There wouldn't be any additional load, unless the ship was experiencing acceleration (either due to gravity or thrust).

If it WAS experiencing acceleration, then I expect that - depending on the materials it's constructed of - it would rapidly buckle and collapse, because the strength of materials doesn't necessarily scale linearly with it's mass. ie. if a piece of steel suddenly doubled in mass, it might not be able to support it's own weight any more.

 

[simonh]

Weird engineering question:

Let's say that somehow, due to gravitic jiggerypokery, the mass of the ship suddenly increased by a few hundred percent (2-5 times, lets say). Nothing else changes - only the mass of everything inside the ship changes (so volume remains the same), and then it rapidly drops back down to normal.

Would this have any effect on the ship?

Everyone would die. Sans any other effect, the momentum of the blood and other fluids circulating in their bodies would stay the same, which means their velocities would drop, siezing up the circulatory system and most likely inducing a heart attack. Also the permeability of the membranes in their bodies to most or all disolved compounds would probably change, Causing wide scale metabolic dysfunction.

But then inconvenient details like this are usualy ignored in FS, so I'd not make a big deal out of it.

Simon Hibbs

 

[EDG]

Would this have any effect on the ship?

Everyone would die. Sans any other effect, the momentum of the blood and other fluids circulating in their bodies would stay the same, which means their velocities would drop, siezing up the circulatory system and most likely inducing a heart attack. Also the permeability of the membranes in their bodies to most or all disolved compounds would probably change, Causing wide scale metabolic dysfunction.

Ooo. Really. Hm. I didn't think of that - and this would be unavoidable too. Would it be survivable if it only happened for a couple of seconds, and if maybe the mass increase was more like 100%?

(this is not a bad thing. In fact, this is exactly what I was looking for).

 

[Klaus Kipling]

Would this have any effect on the ship?

Everyone would die. Sans any other effect, the momentum of the blood and other fluids circulating in their bodies would stay the same, which means their velocities would drop, siezing up the circulatory system and most likely inducing a heart attack. Also the permeability of the membranes in their bodies to most or all disolved compounds would probably change, Causing wide scale metabolic dysfunction.

Ooo. Really. Hm. I didn't think of that - and this would be unavoidable too. Would it be survivable if it only happened for a couple of seconds, and if maybe the mass increase was more like 100%?

(this is not a bad thing. In fact, this is exactly what I was looking for).

You sick puppy....

 

[lastbesthope]

Weird engineering question:

Let's say that somehow, due to gravitic jiggerypokery, the mass of the ship suddenly increased by a few hundred percent (2-5 times, lets say). Nothing else changes - only the mass of everything inside the ship changes (so volume remains the same), and then it rapidly drops back down to normal.

Would this have any effect on the ship? The effective density of everything in the ship also has to increase with the mass (since the volume stays the same) but would that necessarily do anything to its ability to bear the extra load of the ship's increased mass?

Well assuming you're talking about increasing the strength of the gravitational field within the confines of the ship and it's structure, the mass wouldn't increase, the weight would.

LBH

 

[Infojunky]

Here is a 300 DTon Tail-Sitter that I like to use, with a few changes.

It's nice but why is engineering out of balance with the direction of thrust?

 

[EDG]

Well assuming you're talking about increasing the strength of the gravitational field within the confines of the ship and it's structure, the mass wouldn't increase, the weight would.

Nope, I am specifically talking about the mass increasing. Like I said, "weird gravitic jiggerypokery".

 

[Infojunky]

Well assuming you're talking about increasing the strength of the gravitational field within the confines of the ship and it's structure, the mass wouldn't increase, the weight would.

Nope, I am specifically talking about the mass increasing. Like I said, "weird gravitic jiggerypokery".

Now this is one of the best puzzles I have seen in a while.

If the apparent density of everything within the frame scales along with the mass shift, Then most of the material relations within the frame should stay the same. As should most of the electrical relations. Chemical reactions really are going to depend on the specific reaction. Mechanical reactions are where the problem is, The additional mass is going to increase the energy required for each and every one. So either everything slows down or stops.

Thus at the end of this thought process, is that in general reality lugs along with the cycle. As for biological effects I have hard time seeing structural issues as all the tissue relations do not change, but the slowing of all internal pumping being the greatest danger.

 

[GypsyComet]

The ability of the circulatory system to keep blood where it belongs (when that blood is suddenly five time denser) becomes an issue. Depending on what "rapidly" means, even if the circulatory rush for the floor doesn't kill, it will still take a bit for circulation to resume "normal service" to all parts of the body as the mass effect drops off. You may actually want to fall over, provided you can avoid a concussion, as the blood will then pool across more of your body and be closer to your brain when normal circulation resumes.