Gravity assist
- Thread starter paltrysum
- Start date
With constant thrust M drives you don't need it. Even the lowly 1g drive can do amazing things just by turning it on and letting it run constantly.
The amount of time spent maneuvering to do the slingshots is generally not work it when you have constant high thrust. A ship adding a slingshot maneuver to its base velocity also has to expend the energy to slow down on the other side of its course. With constant thrust you do a turnover half way to your target to decelerate. You would need to do the math to determine if your initial slingshot speed increase would actually be more efficient. Adding more baseline speed at the beginning means you may have to use a similar maneuver at your destination, assuming you can. Otherwise you may overshoot your target.
The amount of time spent maneuvering to do the slingshots is generally not work it when you have constant high thrust. A ship adding a slingshot maneuver to its base velocity also has to expend the energy to slow down on the other side of its course. With constant thrust you do a turnover half way to your target to decelerate. You would need to do the math to determine if your initial slingshot speed increase would actually be more efficient. Adding more baseline speed at the beginning means you may have to use a similar maneuver at your destination, assuming you can. Otherwise you may overshoot your target.
With constant thrust M drives you don't need it. Even the lowly 1g drive can do amazing things just by turning it on and letting it run constantly.
The amount of time spent maneuvering to do the slingshots is generally not work it when you have constant high thrust. A ship adding a slingshot maneuver to its base velocity also has to expend the energy to slow down on the other side of its course. With constant thrust you do a turnover half way to your target to decelerate. You would need to do the math to determine if your initial slingshot speed increase would actually be more efficient. Adding more baseline speed at the beginning means you may have to use a similar maneuver at your destination, assuming you can. Otherwise you may overshoot your target.
The amount of time spent maneuvering to do the slingshots is generally not work it when you have constant high thrust. A ship adding a slingshot maneuver to its base velocity also has to expend the energy to slow down on the other side of its course. With constant thrust you do a turnover half way to your target to decelerate. You would need to do the math to determine if your initial slingshot speed increase would actually be more efficient. Adding more baseline speed at the beginning means you may have to use a similar maneuver at your destination, assuming you can. Otherwise you may overshoot your target.
Rikki Tikki Traveller
Cosmic Mongoose
Phavoc is right. Gravity Assist works mostly because the ship leaving has a lower mass than the ship entering the planetary area. Since M-Drives basically don't use fuel, you don't get nearly the benefit.
If Kerbal Space Program counts I have.paltrysum said:
Gravity assists are useful if you don't have a lot of Delta-V to play with in your manoeuvre drive. Folks running probes have used gravity assists to get their craft on grand tours of the solar system and can be incredibly stingy with reaction mass if you're prepared to take 10 years on your trip. For the sort of things a Traveller party might want to do they're probably not relevant as Traveller ships have so much Delta-V available that it's going to be more economical to just blast your way to the destination quicker.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
It's something to consider for orbital or limited range thrusters.
