Ground Weapons VS Starships
- Thread starter Solomani666
- Start date
Wow, two pages in three hours. Nice.
First, DFW, I'm having a hard time telling if you are being intentionally rude or not, so do us a favor and use more smilies. Even if you don't mean it, it helps to keep the temperature of this thread down.
See?
Now then, I almost feel that we've lost track of what we were arguing about. If the question is "are micrometeoroids potentially dangerous" I think we all agree that both logic/science and the rules say that, yes, they are potentially bad news.
If the argument is whether this fact means that all ships are super-armored hulls made of 100% Genuine Pure Distilled Organic Awesome, then I think we strongly disagree. And I don't know that without a common set of assumptions or data that is either hard to get (probability of striking something large enough to be dangerous) or impossible to know (whether Traveller M-Drives employ some kind of field effect or not), that we can meaningfully answer this question to everyone's satisfaction. Indeed, such issues probably helped to spawn the "IMTU" practice in the first place.
Thus, we are left in a permanent stalemate, where, once again, each GM must decide for himself how his TU functions.
For this GM, I don't like hulls with base toughness of Godly, and so will not concern myself with such things. As for the encounter table, like all such tables, it is intended purely to inject excitement into an otherwise unremarkable set of events. Because yes, under the rules, ships have a 1/36 chance of potentially getting hurt very badly by a micrometeorite. However, they DO have a chance of being hurt very badly. So, this means under the rules, hulls aren't invulnerable to impacts. Perhaps in DFW's TU, things are different...
First, DFW, I'm having a hard time telling if you are being intentionally rude or not, so do us a favor and use more smilies. Even if you don't mean it, it helps to keep the temperature of this thread down.
See?Now then, I almost feel that we've lost track of what we were arguing about. If the question is "are micrometeoroids potentially dangerous" I think we all agree that both logic/science and the rules say that, yes, they are potentially bad news.
If the argument is whether this fact means that all ships are super-armored hulls made of 100% Genuine Pure Distilled Organic Awesome, then I think we strongly disagree. And I don't know that without a common set of assumptions or data that is either hard to get (probability of striking something large enough to be dangerous) or impossible to know (whether Traveller M-Drives employ some kind of field effect or not), that we can meaningfully answer this question to everyone's satisfaction. Indeed, such issues probably helped to spawn the "IMTU" practice in the first place.
Thus, we are left in a permanent stalemate, where, once again, each GM must decide for himself how his TU functions.
For this GM, I don't like hulls with base toughness of Godly, and so will not concern myself with such things. As for the encounter table, like all such tables, it is intended purely to inject excitement into an otherwise unremarkable set of events. Because yes, under the rules, ships have a 1/36 chance of potentially getting hurt very badly by a micrometeorite. However, they DO have a chance of being hurt very badly. So, this means under the rules, hulls aren't invulnerable to impacts. Perhaps in DFW's TU, things are different...
Especially because it would make sense for other reasons, too. Providedapoc527 said:
that a ship's maneuver drive malfunctions while the ship is moving at a
high speed, and the ship is therefore unable to decelerate, the emergen-
cy services would certainly like to have a chance to reach that ship be-
fore it hits something valuable or disappears into interstellar space as a
"Flying Dutchman" - and most crews should also prefer to move not too
fast to become out of reach of any help in case of a drive failure.
Nathan Brazil
Banded Mongoose
For everyone's consideration:
Versions of Traveller are considered thematically the same......(I will research the numbers for other versions of Traveller as well)
In Classic Traveller specifically Striker miniatures, personal and starship weapons were using the same scale, with some real world physics thrown in.
TL 15 Battle Armor has an Armor Value of 18 in that game, the equivelent of 5 cm of Hard Steel.
Unarmored Starships (CT High Guard Armor Rating 0) were considered to have a Striker Armor Value of 60, which equated to the equivelent toughness/thickness of 190cm (yes one hundred ninety centimeters) of Hard Steel.
Your Tigress Class Dreadnought (CT High Guard Armor Rating 15) were considered to have a Striker Armor Value of 85, which equated to the equivelent toughness/thickness of 1660cm (yes one thousand six-hundred sixty centimeters) of Hard Steel. Admittedly, Tigresses are made of Bonded Superdense material (14x tough compared to hard steel), so it is only really 118cm thick.
How much energy is needed to penetrate 5 or 190 or 1660 cm of Hard Steel?
Versions of Traveller are considered thematically the same......(I will research the numbers for other versions of Traveller as well)
In Classic Traveller specifically Striker miniatures, personal and starship weapons were using the same scale, with some real world physics thrown in.
TL 15 Battle Armor has an Armor Value of 18 in that game, the equivelent of 5 cm of Hard Steel.
Unarmored Starships (CT High Guard Armor Rating 0) were considered to have a Striker Armor Value of 60, which equated to the equivelent toughness/thickness of 190cm (yes one hundred ninety centimeters) of Hard Steel.
Your Tigress Class Dreadnought (CT High Guard Armor Rating 15) were considered to have a Striker Armor Value of 85, which equated to the equivelent toughness/thickness of 1660cm (yes one thousand six-hundred sixty centimeters) of Hard Steel. Admittedly, Tigresses are made of Bonded Superdense material (14x tough compared to hard steel), so it is only really 118cm thick.
How much energy is needed to penetrate 5 or 190 or 1660 cm of Hard Steel?
Distance is the circumference of the Earth orbit around the sun (per year), same as your Earth impact "tons per year" data.DFW said:
No joke.
Your wiki data was for Earth orbit impacts.
Do ships in Earth orbit not orbit the sun along with the Earth?
OTOH: What is the speed of the ship at the start and end of a typical Traveller journey? Zero! Why assume peak velocity for the entire trip?
Even yielding to all of your objections, the chance for a 0.1 gram impact is still one per 25 years … hardly a frequent event.
[EDIT]
Since the math hasn’t impressed you, let’s try some empirical evidence:
1. Starting with the first Russian Space Station continuing through the ISS we have had a space station in Earth orbit for (a long time).
2. All of these stations have had, in Traveller terms, (almost no armor).
3. While in orbit, the Earth has continued to orbit the Sun, travelling (a really long distance) at a (really high speed).
4. The number of Astronauts killed by micro-meteor impacts so far is ZERO and the number of Stations crippled by micro-meteor impacts is ZERO.
So the empirical evidence shows that a ‘Spacecraft’ with (almost no armor) travelling (a really long distance) at a (really high speed) for (a long time) has roughly ZERO chance of suffering a catastrophic impact.
The issue is not that an impact isn’t dangerous, clearly it is, however space is just so empty that the odds of actually hitting something are very, very low.
Hmmm ... if we intend to continue this debate, we need reliable data on
the frequency of micrometeorites in interplanetary space, as the data on
their frequency in Earth orbit are misleading, because the gravity field of
Earth tends to attract a comparatively high number of such objects - the-
re is a very high probability that such objects will be less frequent the far-
ther one is away from a planet.
the frequency of micrometeorites in interplanetary space, as the data on
their frequency in Earth orbit are misleading, because the gravity field of
Earth tends to attract a comparatively high number of such objects - the-
re is a very high probability that such objects will be less frequent the far-
ther one is away from a planet.
DFW said:
Ok, so how many astronauts and starships have been lost to impact speeds of ~9160 km/sec?
Should we be concerned about black holes as well?
One could hit a starship and, even at low speeds, it would be very bad.
Aparently the fact that the odds of an event are so slim as to approach Zero has no relevance.
While I cannot base this upon any numbers, my "gut feeling" is that the
risk is approximately comparable to the risk of an aircraft crash during
the second half of the twentieth century, and that the people of the set-
ting will probably deal with it in the same way as real world humans did
then: Accidents happen occasionally, starships are wrecked or disappear
now and then, but this does not prevent their use, cause paranoid securi-
ty preparations or drive insurance premiums through the ceiling.
And looking at another real world parallel: We all know how many people
die in car accidents each year (well, in fact each hour), and that different-
ly designed, "armoured" vehicles would considerably reduce that risk -
but almost all of us would still choose a cheap dangerous car over an ex-
tremely expensive "safe" one.
risk is approximately comparable to the risk of an aircraft crash during
the second half of the twentieth century, and that the people of the set-
ting will probably deal with it in the same way as real world humans did
then: Accidents happen occasionally, starships are wrecked or disappear
now and then, but this does not prevent their use, cause paranoid securi-
ty preparations or drive insurance premiums through the ceiling.
And looking at another real world parallel: We all know how many people
die in car accidents each year (well, in fact each hour), and that different-
ly designed, "armoured" vehicles would considerably reduce that risk -
but almost all of us would still choose a cheap dangerous car over an ex-
tremely expensive "safe" one.
Solomani666
Mongoose
barnest2 said:Jeraa said:
Don't be ridiculous...
Also, there are people who can open dimensional gateways using brainpower... though why you would want too, i don't know...
I bet that Timothy Leary would know the answer to that.
