Ship's Locker: Out of the Closet

[Condottiere]

Scoot/air

G. Grav vehicles are mainstreamed at technological level eight, while the auxiliary version comes online at technological level ten.

H. Assumption would be that whatever non fusion, or fission, power plant is utilized, or energy source, the auxiliary grav drive should be able to digest that of whatever default would be technological level eight.

I. Outside of truly experienced and ace pilots, very few people should be able to control an open frame light grav vehicle at six kiloklix per hour.

J. And I'm pretty sure most people are going to have issues at three hundred klix per hour within a forest.

K. And in order to patrol, you need to be able to notice things, not have them whiz by in your peripheral vision.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Proof of concept.

The point from now on would be reducing overhead and production costs, and write off research and development.

Timing is interesting, too.

No, the issue is laser efficiency. 300MJ input, 3MJ output. And it is a one off not a sustained output.

Nothing to see here, move along, we may have something in another twenty years...

not that it will matter by then as we will have all frozen to death thanks to the net zero lunacy gripping western governments.

 

[Geir]

No, the issue is laser efficiency. 300MJ input, 3MJ output. And it is a one off not a sustained output.

Nothing to see here, move along, we may have something in another twenty years...

not that it will matter by then as we will have all frozen to death thanks to the net zero lunacy gripping western governments.

I'm not seeing a fusion pellet stove in my future. Can't see how it can be scaled down or made repeatable. It is, after all, a byproduct of a setup made to simulate nuclear explosions without actually nuking anything, but it's been superseded by supercomputers, so to me, this is just a bunch of lasers in a lab looking for a new purpose. There are other entrants in the fusion race with more promising, but only theoretical, designs. Twenty years out. I said that in 1983 and it's still true today. It might still be true in 2043.

 

[Condottiere]

It took us a while to figure out a viable way to fly, and we've figured out a number of variants.

It could well be in the future that a number of developments get cobbled together, to achieve that affordable energy production through a fusion reactor.

In our case, we figured out that the Apple could be levitated.

 

[Condottiere]

Scoot/air

L. Personally, my comfort zone lies in the medium speedband.

M. Driving down the freeway between one to two hundred klix per hour.

N. What I might do different nowadays is not doing that while at the wheel of an overloaded lorry.

O. So a technological level five open frame light ground vehicle would sort of suit that.

P. With four wheels for stability, plus one to agility, three spaces, range two hundred klix and at a cost of four and a half kilobux.

 

[Condottiere]

Scoot/air

Q. Technological level eleven caps performance at very fast (five to eight hundred klix per hour), with a range of six hundred klix.

R. Fastest motorcycle at the moment achieves six hundred seventy six klix per hour.

S. Though more conventionally constructed motorcycles seem to top four hundred klix per hour.

T. With the auxiliary grav drive, you drop a speedband.

U. And at the introductionary technological level of ten, that would become high (two to three hundred klix per hour).

 

[Condottiere]

Scoot/air

V. Installing the auxiliary grav drive would require twenty five percent of default spaces, in our case rounding that up to one.

W. With three spaces, not much point in tweaking either speed or fuel tankage.

X. Fuel efficiency, on the other hand, doesn't affect spaces, and range can be increased by fifty percent, for every extra twenty five percent increase in cost per space.

Y. With two spaces left over, you have the choice between two basic seats, one basic seat and a quarter tonne of cargo, or maybe as a drone, with half a tonne of payload.

Z. Should track down the actual altitude that the auxiliary grav drive can reach.

 

[Condottiere]

For Earth, atmospheric entry occurs by convention at the Kármán line at an altitude of 100 km (62 miles; 54 nautical miles) above the surface, while at Venus atmospheric entry occurs at 250 km (160 mi; 130 nmi) and at Mars atmospheric entry at about 80 km (50 mi; 43 nmi).

If I interpret this correctly, once you switch on the manoeuvre drive, or any grav motor variant, at a hundred klix over Terra, you can more or less reenter the atmosphere without burning up.

 

[Condottiere]

Transport/air

1. Port/air and carry/air were options.

2. Eight space light ground vehicle would be six kilobux.

3. Auxiliary grav drive would take two spaces and cost six kilobux.

4. Assuming overall technological level ten, medium speed, minus one agility, and two hundred fifty klix range.

5. That's one crew and five passengers, no cargo.

6. Autopilot (improved), seven and a half kilobux; communications system (improved), seventy five bux; computer/one, five hundred bux; entertainment system, two hundred bux; navigation system (basic), two kilobux; sensor system (basic), five kilobux.

7. Fifteen thousand, two hundred seventy five bux.

8. Total twenty seven thousand two hundred seventy five bux.

9. Nine times cheaper, sacrificing performance.

 

[Condottiere]

Transport/air

A. Smallest variant would be a four spacer.

B. The auxiliary grav drive would take up a space.

C. That leaves one crew and two passengers.

D. Cheaper than the scoot/air, but comparatively poorer performing.

E. Would take up two tonnes onboard a spacecraft.

F. The advantage would be that it's great for getting around town, for next to nothing.

Spin/air?

 

[Condottiere]

Air/trek

1. Like a half track, but for heavy ground vehicles with an auxiliary grav drive.

2. I guess you could also use a twenty space light ground vehicle, which would be, in theory, two and a half times larger than an air/raft.

3. If you can utilize this, utility vehicle, it is per space a lot cheaper than the heavier variant.

4. A quarter dedicated to the auxiliary grav drive leaves us with fifteen spaces.

5. That's enough to turn it into a technical.

6. A support mortar weighs in at a quarter tonne, thus one space.

7. Has a basic range of three, nine damage, blast six, hundred bux per round.

8. Extreme range places enough buffer between you and the enemy, and responsive enough to react to artillery support.

9. The air/trek makes heavy weapon systems self propelled.

 

[Condottiere]

A New Way to Achieve Nuclear Fusion: Helion

Writer/Narrator: Brian McManus
Editor: Dylan Hennessy
Animator: Mike Ridolfi
Animator: Eli Prenten
Sound: Graham Haerther
Thumbnail: Simon Buckmaster

1. Trapping magnetic energy in a closed field.

2. Did not know that plasma can self organize itself.

3. Looks like the internal combustion engine is alive and well.

4. Or is it a turbine, now?

5. Twenty kilogrammes.

6. Sounds like coffee blends.

7. Manufacturing cycle of three years?

8. Generator depreciation.

9. Interactive plasma.

A. Bigger generator for more hotter plasma to compensate for increased fuel ion gyro orbits.

B. Capacitors.

C. Banana power.

D. Plasma rings.

E. Tidal power.

 

[Condottiere]

Air/trek

A. Should be able to mount a siege mortar.

B. Twenty centimetre calibre, four deadly dice, blast twenty.

C. Four hundred kilobux, twenty kilobux per round.

D. Four tonnes, though no indication how much the twenty centimetre mortar round weighs.

E. At twenty kilobux plus, standard spacecraft missiles might be a better bet, with the same damage, increased range, but uncertain as to blast area.

F. Launcher costs three quarters of a megabux, but in theory only take up one space.

 

[Condottiere]

Air/trek

G. The gun howitzer seems a reasonable compromise, and achievable at technological level nine.

H. At least, according to Traveller.

I. The cost is a tad prohibitive at four hundred and fifty kilobux, but basic ammunition is a hundred bux per round.

J. Damage is one deadly die with blast fifteen.

K. It's listed at one tonne, but with eight spaces; I don't think you'd necessarily have to place it within a turret.

 

[Condottiere]

Air/trek

L. The technological level six rockets seem a sort of a mixed bag.

M. It's probably something you want to source locally, since they aren't accurate, and range seems a little short.

N. Their most effective use would be rippling them off, and saturating a football field, or several, with blasts.

O. On the other hand, experience seems to indicate that a few smartified rockets would of greater effect.

P. These would be the ones you take along in the starship cargo holds.

 

[Condottiere]

Air/trek

Q. It occurs to me that if you're levitating, how does the grav vehicle deal with recoil?

R. I don't think inertial compensation is found outside of spacecraft construction.

S. It's obvious that you'd have that issue with mortars and howitzers.

T. And probably with mass driver and rail guns.

U. And since it's an issue for Fusion Gun Man Portable, their larger cousins as well.

 

[Sigtrygg]

magic, the same way it levitates in the first place.

Less snarky answer - mass of the vehicle is likely to be four orders of magnitude or more than the mass of the projectile, the momentum transfer is easy enough to calculate.

 

[Condottiere]

Would explain one hardpoint per hundred tonnes.

More practically for self propelled artillery, land on solid ground, support legs extended.

 

[Condottiere]

Air/trek

V. Technological level ten tac launcher.

W. With four missiles in a quarter tonne package, this may be the best bang for buck.

X. Range(s) is/are/n't great comparatively, but better than other options.

Y. Going by the wording of the text, you can mix and match four missiles, and go after aircraft, personnel, or tanks, without worrying about targetting sights (maybe holographic, and therefore software).

Z. Or personnel riding in tanks that can fly.

 

[Condottiere]

I would suppose that a turntable would be an open turret.

In theory, you could place a pintle in the rear of the truck, to give the howitzer some traverse; elevation is a mystery.

Which also brings into question if the weapon systems are naked, or need to have separate carriages if towed.