Pot hole map (Holes in rules for GM's watch out for)

[GamerDude]

5) How do ships take off and land - Pretty much every ship is equipped with anti-grav, and that more than makes up for not having a lifting body. You don't need forward momentum to create lift, you use your ships reactor to do that for you. If I recall the anti-grav device explanation correctly, the stronger the grav field, the more powerful 'lift' you get. It's only when you are getting away from gravity does your anti-gravity capabilities fall off in efficiency.

This was unfortunately a big 'discussion' a while back when someone tried to declare the US Space Shuttle was capable of lifting into orbit on its own.

"Al's Guide to MGT's Three classes of 'hull streamlining' "
- The 'built in space, never gonna land will burn up if it tries'. think like a Borg cube, SW Star Destroyer or the Death Star. Totally lacking in aerodynamic lift properties (contra/anti-grav aside).
- Can land on a planet "dead stick or partial power" glide, has lifting surfaces, but requires a separate booster vehicle to return to orbit. (I.E. the US Space Shuttle - placed on the external tank w/boosters to lift off can't carry enough fuel to get around the block and renters with at best some maneuvering jets).
- Lands, takes off, hits orbit under own power whether or not assisted by contra/anti-grav. (Millennium Falcon would be one that had in my book contra/anti-grav, the old Pan Am space plane from "2001: A Space Odesey" took off like a 747 does today).

To quote page 106 of the Core Rulebook:

THE HULL
Hulls are identifyed by their displacement, expressed in tons.
Configuration
A ship may have any of three configurations – standard (a wedge, cone, sphere or cylinder), streamlined (a wing, disc or other lifting body allowing it to enter the atmosphere easily) or distributed (made up of several sections, and incapable of entering an atmosphere or maintaining its shape under gravity).

Streamlining a ship increases the cost of the hull by 10%. This streamlining includes fuel scoops which allow the skimming of unrefined fuel from gas giants or the gathering of water from open lakes or oceans. Streamlining may not be retrofitted; it must be included at the time of construction.

A distributed ship reduces the cost of its hull by 10%. It is completely non-aerodynamic and if it enters an atmosphere or strong gravity it runs the risk of falling to the surface of the planet. It cannot mount fuel scoops.

A standard-hull ship may still enter atmosphere but is very ungainly and ponderous, capable only of making a controlled glide to the surface. Getting it back into space requires an elaborate launch setup and considerable expense. A standard-hull ship may have scoops for gathering fuel from a gas giant but the process will be much more diffi cult and less effi cient. Larger ships of this type will often carry a specialized sub-craft (such as a modular cutter, see page 135) to perform the actual atmospheric skimming. See Atmospheric Operations on page 137.

 

[F33D]

To quote page 106 of the Core Rulebook:

Yep, this is the page that the editor accidentally screwed up.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

The thing is, if you have ContraGrav, you can land just about anything.

So you have a Cube: Use the CG to lower your ship slowly to the surface (say 10kph) and keep the CG on when you "land" (actually float slightly above the surface). Take off would be the same in reverse. Sure it will take 12+ hours to reach orbit, but you can do it. As long as you avoid very high winds (no jetstream or strong storms allowed).

It could be done.

 

[phavoc]

The thing is, if you have ContraGrav, you can land just about anything.

So you have a Cube: Use the CG to lower your ship slowly to the surface (say 10kph) and keep the CG on when you "land" (actually float slightly above the surface). Take off would be the same in reverse. Sure it will take 12+ hours to reach orbit, but you can do it. As long as you avoid very high winds (no jetstream or strong storms allowed).

It could be done.

That's not always going to be case. Using your example of a cube, I would agree. But structurally some ship designs are able to take the stresses of thrust, but their configuration would collapse under gravity (which would be a variable, since microgravity would probably be ok, but a 1G environment would not).

I think the rule is meant as a general rule of thumb. Traveller does not have sufficient detailed designs to account for things like this.

 

[F33D]

MT had both. Lower tech needed a gravity well to push against and lost thrust if they where to far out. Later units used pure grav drives and did not need a gravity well.

As for jump procedures etc „Sector Fleet" has some canonical stuff

MT had "Thrust Plates" for deep space drive. It wasn't a grav drive. MGT uses a grav drive for deep space. It isn't contra-grav though but creates grav on its own.

 

[Jeraa]

MT had "Thrust Plates" for deep space drive. It wasn't a grav drive. MGT uses a grav drive for deep space. It isn't contra-grav though but creates grav on its own.

Page 56, Referees manual for MT disagrees with you on the nature of drives

As well as page 65, which has costs for both thruster plates and grav modules for ships.

The fourth significant development came from the search for a starship maneuver drive that did not lose efficiency when away from a strong gravity well. Artificial gravity and damper technology led to yet another sub-atomic force-based technology. This new, artificially generated force pushes against a vessel’s “thrust plates’’ themselves, which make true reactionless thrusters a reality for starship-sized vessels.

 

[F33D]

The fourth significant development came from the search for a starship maneuver drive that did not lose efficiency when away from a strong gravity well. Artificial gravity and damper technology led to yet another sub-atomic force-based technology. This new, artificially generated force pushes against a vessel’s “thrust plates’’ themselves, which make true reactionless thrusters a reality for starship-sized vessels.

Correct, research lead to thrust plates which isn't grav drives (which in MT loses efficiency away from a grav well. Different tech. Read the description carefully. If you stand next to a thrust plate you don't experience an grav related phenomenon...

 

[GamerDude]

To quote page 106 of the Core Rulebook:

Yep, this is the page that the editor accidentally screwed up.

um... in what way did the editor "screw it up"?

 

[F33D]

To quote page 106 of the Core Rulebook:

Yep, this is the page that the editor accidentally screwed up.

um... in what way did the editor "screw it up"?

See the quote above from the author of that part of the
MGT rule set...

 

[nDervish]

To quote page 106 of the Core Rulebook:

Yep, this is the page that the editor accidentally screwed up.

um... in what way did the editor "screw it up"?

See this post from earlier in this thread where the author of the rules on p.106 is cited as having said on the COTI forums that those rules were different from what was in the manuscript he submitted, so something must have happened to them during the editing process.