Maneuver Drives but no grav plating

[Tom Kalbfus]

Suppose there was no artificial gravity but there was everything else? Remember the old Star Frontiers game? The floor plans in that assumed continous acceleration and that acceleration was used as gravity for the starship's interior.

So how does it compare with the Traveller Scout/Courier?

 

[dragoner]

Two words: strawberry jam.

 

[Ishmael]

like the old Azhanti High Lightning deck plans?

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

Two words: strawberry jam.

It accelerates at 1-g, not a quarter impulse!, one main problem is every bit of furniture has to be bolted to the floor. This particular ship lands on its belly like an airplane, thus everything that's on the floor when the ship is accelerating in space will be on the back wall when the ship is on the ground, including beds chairs and everything else. The crew will have to make sure every loose item is secure when the ship is about to make a landing. Now the ship is capable of greater acceleration than 1-g, problem is the crew will be strapped to their acceleration couches when this occurs, usual reasons for this is when the ship is entering an atmosphere and getting ready to land, and when the ship is combat maneuvering. The Crew will be stuck to their crew positions when the ship is undergoing violent maneuvers in space.

 

[Rick]

Those are 2 different (if incomplete) ships. The bottom one, the 'Assault Scout' actually lands on its' tail - the pic on the front of one of the modules showing it landing on its' belly was in error. Deck VI (not shown) actually has a lift that extends to the ground when it has landed.

I think you'll find that some of the 2300AD surface lander ships have a similar deck arrangement.

Got a lot of fond memories of running Star Frontiers, it was my first sci-fi rpg. May have to do something like the Assault Scout for 2300AD at some point.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

Those are 2 different (if incomplete) ships. The bottom one, the 'Assault Scout' actually lands on its' tail - the pic on the front of one of the modules showing it landing on its' belly was in error. Deck VI (not shown) actually has a lift that extends to the ground when it has landed.

I think you'll find that some of the 2300AD surface lander ships have a similar deck arrangement.

Got a lot of fond memories of running Star Frontiers, it was my first sci-fi rpg. May have to do something like the Assault Scout for 2300AD at some point.

I think the Assault Scout can be converted to Traveller. Interesting sort of FTL Drive they had, actually they didn't have one, it was a loophole in physics that when a ship exceeded 1% of the speed of light it would enter the Void, where faster than light travel was possible. If you do the calculation, you'll find that it takes about 3.5 days to react 1% of the speed of light if you accelerate continuously at 1-G. I think in Traveller terms, you can substitute the Alternative Teleport Drive, instead of spending a week in Jump space, you spend the week getting to and from 1% of the speed of light, that adds up to a week. The ships in Star Frontiers were powered by fission power plants. Mongoose has rules for those as well.

 

[Rick]

It was a hugely fun game, but not a 'serious' sci-fi game; much more space opera than anything and with so much 'handwavium' you could get RSI!
Still got my copy of the 2 box sets around here somewhere.

If I was going to 'port the assault scout over, I would make no pretence of using the same ftl/power system as SF - I'd scrap that part of the design and start over using the 2300AD stutterwarp system and redesigning the rest. The 'stack deck' system would make doing deck plans much easier, as you could design each deck almost as a self contained block, with just a little bit of fudging to make it all fit.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

It was a hugely fun game, but not a 'serious' sci-fi game; much more space opera than anything and with so much 'handwavium' you could get RSI!
Still got my copy of the 2 box sets around here somewhere.

If I was going to 'port the assault scout over, I would make no pretence of using the same ftl/power system as SF - I'd scrap that part of the design and start over using the 2300AD stutterwarp system and redesigning the rest. The 'stack deck' system would make doing deck plans much easier, as you could design each deck almost as a self contained block, with just a little bit of fudging to make it all fit.

You might want to insert the requirement that you reach 1% of the speed of light to activate Stutterwarp, and once activated the stutterwarp would do about 1 light year per day. One thing about Star Frontiers that is more realistic than classic traveller is the floor plans assume acceleration for gravity. You can do high-gee manuevers for combat, but for getting to 1% of the speed of light you would want to accelerate at 1 g A fission power source couldn't do this, you could substitute antimatter for the fuel pellets that Star Frontier ships use. The antimatter would be safely contained of course. I would suggest for handwavium, have the antimatter in the form of antiprotons contained within buckminsterfullerene molecules. You see antiprotons have the same charge as the electrons in the electron shells of the fullerene molecules, Have the fullerene solidified into pellets, and that should be more energetic than fission fuel.

 

[Reynard]

If a ship is to be designed for regular, constant accel/deccel that it needs the floor configuration perpendicular to movement, I would assume the ship would be configured more like the concept from pre-shuttle days. Makes no sense to have a ship's contents specially structured for two very different flight types ninety degrees to each other. I picture the spherical Mercenary Cruiser design to be more common of a ship that must be landing capable otherwise it parks in orbit.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

If a ship is to be designed for regular, constant accel/deccel that it needs the floor configuration perpendicular to movement, I would assume the ship would be configured more like the concept from pre-shuttle days. Makes no sense to have a ship's contents specially structured for two very different flight types ninety degrees to each other. I picture the spherical Mercenary Cruiser design to be more common of a ship that must be landing capable otherwise it parks in orbit.

I believe most Star Frontier Starships do park in orbit and rely on a shuttle to transfer people and cargo from that ship to the ground, the Assault Scout is the one exception to that rule. The wings imply that it is part shuttle and part starship, the wings assume an airplane mode of travel while in an atmosphere, therefore the direction of down would be towards the belly of the ship, it could still land on its tail though, much like the Gunstar from the Last Starfighter.

This sort of vehicle would fit well into the Star Frontier's Universe as in the movie it lands on its tail.

Here are some other, more typical, Star Frontiers Starships, you can see that these vessels aren't designed to land.

This is a typical Star Frontiers Space Station.

Here is a ship designed for exploration, the Assault Scout is more of a warcraft.
I have seen no floor plans for this one though, it appears that it would have multiple levels though.

This is cool. A scene we never saw in the Movie 2001 A Space Odyssey, the USS Discovery in orbit around the Earth, the Orion Shuttle is probably carrying David Bowman and Crew.

 

[dragoner]

If a ship is to be designed for regular, constant accel/deccel that it needs the floor configuration perpendicular to movement, I would assume the ship would be configured more like the concept from pre-shuttle days.

Spheres make the most sense for structure, both externally and internally (pressurization). IMO, ships with decks perpendicular to thrust are a 50's thing, most otherwise you don't see it in real world designs. Obviously the Type S with inertial compensators, etc.; will fly rings around the other ship.

 

[Reynard]

Remember the shuttle is an oddball to space flight as we know it in Traveller terms. Everything is locked down, including the crew, at takeoff, becomes a weightless environment in orbit then drops like a winged rock at landing. The only reason the internal design is perpendicular to thrust (and sorry, I meant parallel on the other example in the other post) is for earth bound and winged craft functions not space functions. 2300AD feels odd for us Traveller aficionados but the various Interface Vessels make sense in a game system lacking the ease of AG allowing design to go anywhere. Essentially it's a harder science. Nice halfway design exercise between Traveller and 2300AD. In some ways it's adaptable to Traveller with the Standard configuration for actual landing and Distributed for orbit only ships. The Standard design could actually simulate a tail down landing arrangement. Streamlined small craft would be designed for interface flight in gravity so the airline arrangement is functional since there wouldn't be sustained G force in the 'wrong' direction.

 

[Rick]

Here is a ship designed for exploration, the Assault Scout is more of a warcraft.
I have seen no floor plans for this one though, it appears that it would have multiple levels though.

The Assault Scout is sort of the equivalent of the Traveller 100T Type S scout, with both military, paramilitary and civilian applications. The ship you have got there is the 'Eleanor Moraes', from the module SFKH2 - Mutiny on the Eleanor Moraes; complete with deck plans.
I see the Assault Scout as really only useful in 2300AD, once you have developed AG and some sort of gravity dampening, there is no real need to have spin habitats or parallel decks.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

Here is a ship designed for exploration, the Assault Scout is more of a warcraft.
I have seen no floor plans for this one though, it appears that it would have multiple levels though.

The Assault Scout is sort of the equivalent of the Traveller 100T Type S scout, with both military, paramilitary and civilian applications. The ship you have got there is the 'Eleanor Moraes', from the module SFKH2 - Mutiny on the Eleanor Moraes; complete with deck plans.
I see the Assault Scout as really only useful in 2300AD, once you have developed AG and some sort of gravity dampening, there is no real need to have spin habitats or parallel decks.

Assuming you can. Robert Forward had a proposal for generating artificial gravity fields. As I recall in involved accelerating a fluid of white dwarf materials through a spiral tube which is in turn coiled like an old fashioned phone cord, the fluid is accelerated at half the speed of light to generate a directional gravitational field.

 

[Anonymous]

Assuming you can.

The whole game we discuss is based on assumptions, little to none of what we imagine in the game is a reality or will be in our lifetimes.

How do you get to make statements about assumptions?

Where's the face palm smilie? Really, I need the mother of all face palms...

 

[dragoner]

Assuming you can.

The whole game we discuss is based on assumptions, little to none of what we imagine in the game is a reality or will be in our lifetimes.

How do you get to make statements about assumptions?

Where's the face palm smilie? Really, I need the mother of all face palms...

Pretty much, we probably understand about 5% of the universe, and that's being generous. If you told someone in 1895 Europe that in 50 years time all the empires would be in ruins and jet fighters would be attacking the swarms of bombers that were rubblizing the cities, they would have said you were insane. Forex, I could see TL15 traveller tech in 2300, and if jump doesn't reach a system, build a way station.

 

[Reynard]

A*fluid* of white dwarf matter flowing at light speed?!!! How did we go from no AG tech in this topic to something even Grandfather would find ludicrous? Suddenly, faster that light travel in steampunk 1890's makes sense. Let's go back to the original concept.

 

[Anonymous]

Or just delete the thread and go back to Mongoose Traveller, you remember that don't you Tom? It's what the forum is here for...

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

Assuming you can.

The whole game we discuss is based on assumptions, little to none of what we imagine in the game is a reality or will be in our lifetimes.

How do you get to make statements about assumptions?

Where's the face palm smilie? Really, I need the mother of all face palms...

I never was much for emoticons. I figure if I was being sarcastic, that should be quite obvious by the context without the emoticons. As for artificial gravity, that is just a device for Hollywood in movies like Star Trek and Star Wars so they can save on unnecessary special effects of weightlessness that they feel don't contribute to the story. I tend to think part of the experience of going into space is weightlessness, if you take that into account instead of constructing a Hollywood set so you can have actors on stage that aren't hanging on invisible wires. I think the designs for Star Frontiers spaceships are more creative, because they didn't allow for artificial gravity at the flick of the switch or the press of a button. Just my preference, not a criticism of Traveller. I'd like my science fiction settings to hew as close to reality as possible without making it boring, I just happen to find the Star Trek/Star Wars style artificial gravity to be unnecessary. You can disagree with me if you like. Mostly just looking for something to talk about.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

A*fluid* of white dwarf matter flowing at light speed?!!! How did we go from no AG tech in this topic to something even Grandfather would find ludicrous? Suddenly, faster that light travel in steampunk 1890's makes sense. Let's go back to the original concept.

Hey, not my idea, it was Robert Forward's. Robert Forward like to discuss what it would take to make various science fiction concepts into reality given the physics we know about.