Low Berth travel is for the condemned only?

[sideranautae]

Yeah the death rate in low berths, as written, is insane. Only the truly desperate would travel that way.
Like, "Give Julio $1000, and he'll smuggle you into the USA in a shipping container, don't worry we'll poke a few holes in it, only 10% of you will die" desperate. Which seems wrong for the theme and flavour of a free trader game.

My house rule is: If you fail the roll, something has gone wrong. Make another roll to sort out the thing that went wrong (same DMs), and roll on the Injury chart, adding the effect of that roll. Over 6: No effect. Under 1: Dead. Between 1 and 6: Take whatever damage is indicated, and this can't be fixed by another quick medic check, it requires whatever surgery indicated on the table.

This makes low berth still dangerous, but it's a realistic dangerous, rather than a game of Russian roulette.

Right. So, under your house rules (have you worked out the % that would die?) it is still only the desperate that travel that way. But, many more survive.

 

[Sigtrygg]

If it is streamlined, it can use the ship's shape to maintain aerodynamic lift A 1 g thruster is more that sufficient to push a Free trader through at atmosphere much in the same fashion that a jet engine does with an airliner.

It doesn't work that way. A very close friend of mine was an A-12 YF-12 pilot and, X-15 pilot. I asked him (years ago) about the same scenario. (I actually got him to play a couple games of Trav ) Without thrust greater than the pull of gravity you don't make it into orbit as the lift goes before enough atmospheric drag is gone and, you go down.

Gravity falls off with height, whereas the 1g thrust from your magic engine is constant.

So you use aerodynamic lift plus thrust to fly as high as you can, by the time lift drops off you are high enough for the pull of gravity to be a little less than 1g. So up to orbit you go, very slowly but you will get there (note this is for an Earth sized world)

I doubt if this would work for a large gas giant like Jupiter though, since the gravitational field is much stronger you would probably lose lift before you reached the 0.99g threshold, so down you would go.

 

[AndrewW]

http://news.discovery.com/space/nasa-eyes-crew-deep-sleep-option-for-mission-to-mars-141003.htm

 

[sideranautae]

Gravity falls off with height, whereas the 1g thrust from your magic engine is constant.

Yes, but at altitudes within the atmosphere it is too small to really measure. Even in Low Earth Orbit (a la the international Space Station) it is still almost 1G.

If you study the graph I posted, you will see that with the parasitic drag (which is HUGE on something like a Free Trader) increase with speed, you won't get going fast enough to reach orbital velocity before your lift is gone. And, back down you go (once you run out of fuel).

 

[Sigtrygg]

Gravity falls off with height, whereas the 1g thrust from your magic engine is constant.

Yes, but at altitudes within the atmosphere it is too small to really measure. Even in Low Earth Orbit (a la the international Space Station) it is still almost 1G.

If you study the graph I posted, you will see that with the parasitic drag (which is HUGE on something like a Free Trader) increase with speed, you won't get going fast enough to reach orbital velocity before your lift is gone. And, back down you go (once you run out of fuel).

The highest jet flight is close to 40km (a Mig 25) at which hight the gravitational field strength is about 1.2% lower - so you would climb upwards at around 0.1m/s2

The gravitational strength at the ISS altitude is 8.7m/s2 compared with 9.8m/s3 at the surface by the way

And I like your graph, but can you really compare a 0.5g 747 with a lifting body free trader (assuming that Traveller streamlining means lifting body like aerodynamics?)

(OH, and apologies for the thread derailment, but your stuff on aerodynamics interests me - for years I've been trying to figure out the numbers necessary for Traveller ships like the free trader to be able to fly from a world surface to orbit)

 

[sideranautae]

The highest jet flight is close to 40km (a Mig 25) at which hight the gravitational field strength is about 1.2% lower - so you would climb upwards at around 0.1m/s2

Actually, that isn't the highest jet flight (air breathing jet) the Blackbirds flew MUCH higher. But anyway, that reduction isn't enough for even something with .75G thrust to reach orbit.

And I like your graph, but can you really compare a 0.5g 747 with a lifting body free trader (assuming that Traveller streamlining means lifting body like aerodynamics?)

No, you can't compare a 747 with a Free trader as depicted as the 747 has more lift at high altitude and FAR less parasitic drag than a Type A. So, the Free Trader wouldn't perform nearly as well as a 747 with 0.5 G accel.

I can't take credit for the graph. It is a graph well known to any pilot and/or person trained in aeronautics.

 

[Reynard]

Damn it, did I miss something again! Help me out, sid. I found Docking and landing plus jumping but I'm missing the take off reference. This is embarrassing. Even checked Reaction Drives in High Guard which would make the most sense needing launch facilities. I was in the belief space and starships used landing strips (STOL) and landing pads (VTOL) rather than any launch pad.

 

[sideranautae]

Damn it, did I miss something again! Help me out, sid. I found Docking and landing plus jumping but I'm missing the take off reference. This is embarrassing.

Don't be embarrassed. CRB pg. 106 under Configuration subject.

 

[Rick]

Actually, that isn't the highest jet flight (air breathing jet) the Blackbirds flew MUCH higher.

Yes it is. 37,650 metres (123,520 ft) set by Alexandr Fedotov, in a Mikoyan Gurevitch E-266M (MiG-25M), on 31 August 1977.

No, they didn't. Faster? Yes. Higher? No.

 

[sideranautae]

No, they didn't. Faster? Yes. Higher? No.

Yes. Higher. My good friend was one of the pilots. They didn't allow international observers though. So, you won't find it in civvie records. :wink:

N.B. the max speed record is also not the max speed (set by a R-71) for reasons too obvious to require further detail.

 

[Rick]

No, they didn't. Faster? Yes. Higher? No.

Yes. Higher. My good friend was one of the pilots. They didn't allow international observers though. So, you won't find it in civvie records. :wink:

You won't find it in military records either. In fact, I would go so far as to say you will never, ever find any record of it ever flying above 87,500 ft. :wink:

Wanna know why? Because the bloody engines on the thing will not function above about 87,000 ft. They need a certain amount of oxygen in the air to burn the fuel - too little oxygen and not enough fuel burns even at full throttle to keep it going up. Apparently, back when they built the blackbird engine, you could either make them go fast or go high, not both - the designers chose fast.

I'm afraid that the whole argument of 'classified height records' for the Blackbird is an old urban myth.

 

[Reynard]

"Don't be embarrassed. CRB pg. 106 under Configuration subject."

Oh for!... thanks. Then under Atmospheric Operations it can operate in an atmosphere which, if you miss the other reference, give the indication it's just difficult to land and take off. Oy.

Didn't hit me until I looked just now that all ships without a configuration note in their description is Standard. Explains a lot when you see those ships. Lab ship ain't ever leaving the surface there after!

Thanks again for the pointer.

 

[sideranautae]

No, they didn't. Faster? Yes. Higher? No.

Yes. Higher. My good friend was one of the pilots. They didn't allow international observers though. So, you won't find it in civvie records. :wink:

You won't find it in military records either.

Wrong.

Try again though.

 

[Rick]

Wrong.

Try again though.

Doubt I need to. There are a lot of myths surrounding the Blackbird, speed and altitude being the top ones. It was withdrawn from service and replaced by a more capable aircraft simply because it couldn't fly higher or faster - max speed was about 3.3-3.5, it simply wasn't built to go faster - if it did, the engines cut out and bits of it started to melt. Same with the altitude - the engines, fuel and weight were the limiting factors and it simply couldn't get much higher than 87,000 ft.

So, by all means, try again.

 

[sideranautae]

Wrong.

Try again though.

There are a lot of myths surrounding the Blackbird,

Yes there are. That's why I'm glad to have had clearance and access to a Primary source of info on them. I don't have to guess as to their performance.

 

[Rick]

I know, right. I was also in the enviable position of not needing to guess.

It is also worth noting that ALL of the classified Blackbird performance data has since been declassified. Highest unofficial altitude achieved was 86,950(SR71)-90,000(AF12) ft on a flight test.

 

[EvilDM]

Depending on how you rule the Fast Drug I don't see many instances normal operation or emergency, where it would not be superior to low berth.

Of course if there is no way of getting you out of it befor the 60 days ate over the utility drops sharply.

 

[Reynard]

Looking over low berth and Fast drug. Seems the cost and survival rate of Fast drug should win out and then I noticed the durations. Fast drug is two months, period. Cryoberth suspends the person until switched off, highly variable. After a one week trip, what happens to the person for the other eight weeks? There is nothing in the book saying the drug has a counter drug to end it at any time.

This is why low berths are everywhere in Traveller space and you hardly every hear about Fast drug. I see Fast Drug used for suspension to seriously ill or injured patients in the field.

 

[Rick]

Looking over low berth and Fast drug. Seems the cost and survival rate of Fast drug should win out and then I noticed the durations. Fast drug is two months, period. Cryoberth suspends the person until switched off, highly variable. After a one week trip, what happens to the person for the other eight weeks? There is nothing in the book saying the drug has a counter drug to end it at any time.

This is why low berths are everywhere in Traveller space and you hardly every hear about Fast drug. I see Fast Drug used for suspension to seriously ill or injured patients in the field.

There is a counter-agent for Fast drug, but it's probably only used in emergencies. Slow and medicinal slow will counter the effects, but you'd need a good medic to estimate how much you'd need (my conjecture). I don't think you could use Fast drug on an injured patient - it would slow the metabolism, preventing clotting, but they'd bleed out at the same rate.

Btw - the RAW don't actually say how long a person is out for - it gives a ratio of 60:1 and an example that 2 months will appear to be 1 day for the user, but not how many doses you'd have to take in that time. Is there a reference somewhere to this being just 1 dose?

 

[GypsyComet]

This is why low berths are everywhere in Traveller space and you hardly every hear about Fast drug.

That and copyright. The CT drug assortment was largely lifted from the Dumarest books (with some assistance from Norton and Laumer), so while it sits quietly in the ruleset, it doesn't get mingled with the Traveller setting IP without a good reason.

Also, the attitude towards non-medical drugs in western society changed significantly through the 80s, so the references taken as matter-of-fact in 1977 became a liability if mentioned too loudly.