Arkathan
Emperor Mongoose
Fans on a sailboat.
Starship Operator's Manual - Others for CT?
- Thread starter Longboat
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Arkathan
Emperor Mongoose
One of the mechanics I love in the Elite Dangerous game is that you can turn off your radiators to gain stealth... then the heat builds up until you start getting critical hits on random systems.
MasterGwydion
Emperor Mongoose
It works if you take the sails down. They use them in the swamp all of the time...lol...
Arkathan
Emperor Mongoose
They are all over the place where I am. Lake tours to see gators south of Disney.
In high school, I used to pass one of those red neck yards with several vehicles in states of disrepair.
One of them, obviously displayed in a place of honor, was a three wheeled motorcycle with an airboat propeller on the back. I was amazed and filled with dread at the same time.
Edit: For future consideration, I should probably point out that it was not an ultra-light parachute rider. It had no rudders and no control surface linkages. The steering was all in the front handlebars.
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Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
There's no atmosphere between the fan and the solar sails, so it adds up.
The concept is mentioned in MGT2e22 High Guard as well, although the percentages may be different.
GabrielGABFonseca
Emperor Mongoose
'Lifters' as presented in the new SOM are 'imported,' as it is, from Traveller 5. So the answer to your question is, 'they're in the T5 ship design rules'.
As you likely know High Guard 2022 was designed before and by a completely different team from the folks that wrote the SOM, so the explanation for where the lifters are in the MgT2 constructed system is "Beneath the system's resolution, just like landing gear*."
*(T5's also includes landing gear)
As for the rest, it can be partly inferred from the text — Lifters are usually arrayed in patches generally co-located with the landing gear, and are in the form of replaceable panels in case of failure. Grav module failure is described very analogously to say, dead pixels in an LED screen. If you think of it like one of those big LED screens made out of smaller tiles, that's the gist of it. So yes, they can fail individually (degrading total system output), are 'discrete' '''machines''' that work in concert, if you have too few the ship won't be able to produce as much thrust with them and if you have too many you'll probably be capped to the ship's rated maximum thrust, due to power constraints to the system as a whole.
Obviously, while this is what I had in mind when I wrote the gravitics chapter, Death of the Author™ is a thing and different conclusions can be reached from the same text, not to mention that the entire thing can just be outright ignored if people don't vibe with it.
[Day Status: Made]
(Obs.: Credit where it's due, the bulk of it was Adrian and Sabrina, plus a healthy chunk by Rob Eaglestone — my contributions where Gravitics and Jump, and just commentary/feedback elsewhere.)
ColinD
Cosmic Mongoose
I am a big fan of the Gravitics Chapter in Starship Operator's Manual. It gives great flavor and Sci-Fi explanations to the underlying technology that lets characters become Travellers. Gravitics, and the explanation of warp puts other planets into the imaginary grasp of your players.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Tee/Five pretty much ensured that gravity based propulsion can be expressed in many flavours, though not without a lot of controversy, and not really meshing neatly together.
The problem with lifters is whether it could be considered an add on, or a separate propulsion system, and exactly how that works with vectored thrust.
The other being, in general, with technological capping of acceleration, affects all gravitational expression, or if you could use them as afterburners.
The problem with lifters is whether it could be considered an add on, or a separate propulsion system, and exactly how that works with vectored thrust.
The other being, in general, with technological capping of acceleration, affects all gravitational expression, or if you could use them as afterburners.
WHULorigan
Emperor Mongoose
That is because it was not only compiled by people who knew the Traveller Canon and took their time to work thru it all and think it thru, but the people involved actually have some genuine technical expertise relevant to the topics covered as well.
collins355
Cosmic Mongoose
Gravitics in TNE is utterly different. It is contra-grav, and only nullifies 99% of your mass. In order to do any moving about in TNE you need a thrust-agency of some kind, propellor, rocket, turbofan, HEPLAR, etc, etc.
This is completely different to gravitics in most of the rest of the Traveller canon.
Did I say any different? Although it ALSO discusses other approaches to the subject as alternative technologies. Thrust based Gravitics is in there too if you want it.
WHULorigan
Emperor Mongoose
I guess to be specific, in TNE: FF&S, both the Standard and the Alternate Technologies Section (taken together) have the rules for several types of Gravitics, including both Contragrav (the Standard for the TNE Charted Space Universe) and also Gravitic Displacment (GD - the equivalent of earlier - and later - rulesets' thrust-based Gravitics systems).
collins355
Cosmic Mongoose
GD in FF&S isn't the same as the thrust-based grav technology used by vehicles in other Traveller products. In the "Lifter" chapter in FF&S there is no direct equivalent to that thrust-based grav technology. GD still only moves you up and down, the same as TNE contra-grav, it just uses a different magictech. The other alternative technologies given in chapter 10 are ducted fans and maglev, neither of which are the grav technology in the rest of Traveller.
I like TNE more now than I ever have since I've been reading The Death of Wisdom. Since it came out, I was one of the haters--I couldn't stand TNE (though I bought a lot of it thinking I'd use it for MT or CT....never did). It was such a vast departure from what I loved, classic Traveller (MT wasn't too drastic in just killing the Emperor and have some sectors of space at ware while others were not). Reading that book--the first TNE Novel, and maybe time passing and tastes changing, I recognize TNE as a possible very cool environment in which to game.
But, it feels like an alternate universe. The way Mongoose has made 2300 a sister game in an alternate universe, I feel that TNE fits in that way, too.
I didn't really like Milieu Zero, either.
I guess I just want classic Traveller. Just post Fifth Frontier War.
But, it feels like an alternate universe. The way Mongoose has made 2300 a sister game in an alternate universe, I feel that TNE fits in that way, too.
I didn't really like Milieu Zero, either.
I guess I just want classic Traveller. Just post Fifth Frontier War.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Lifter implies rejection of gravity.
collins355
Cosmic Mongoose
Yes, TNE a very different universe. For example, the change to making spacecraft worry about fuel use in-system (because they needed HEPLAR drives with reaction mass to go anywhere, unless using microjump) had a significant effect. Now you'd mostly be crazy to refuel at distant gas giants and then trundle into the main world.
HEPLAR for vehicles sounded great at first, but using what was essentially a fusion torch to power your air/raft would do nasty things to the scenery!
