In the updated vehicle handbook is there mention somewhere that for vehicles that have no enclosed compartments or shrouds (especially flying ones) that there is an upper limit on just how fast they can fly and keep their rider? While a grav cycle may be capable of speeds of say 500kph, the driver is not going to be able to stay on without protection from airflow or wearing say a powered suit. I don't know what the upper limit is for a human to still move their limbs at high airflow speeds, but it's not going to be terribly high.
Updated Vehicle Handbook in the works
- Thread starter Geir
- Start date
Geir
Emperor Mongoose
Yeah, no supersonic in an atmosphere for open-topped and open frame.
Geir
Emperor Mongoose
If you believe The AI:
The prefix "kilo-" is lowercase because it's a convention established by the International System of Units (SI) for prefixes representing powers of ten. In SI, standard prefixes that denote multiples or submultiples of units are lowercase up to \(10^3\), such as:
- **kilo-** for \(10^3\) (k, for thousand),
- **hecto-** for \(10^2\) (h, for hundred), and
- **deca-** for \(10^1\) (da, for ten).
In contrast, prefixes representing larger powers (like \(10^6\) or above) start with uppercase letters. For example:
- **Mega-** (M) for \(10^6\),
- **Giga-** (G) for \(10^9\), and so forth.
This convention helps to visually distinguish between smaller and larger units at a glance.
(Which, I don't necessarily disbelieve, but it still makes little sense now. Looking it up on The Wikipedia, all the lower case standards were adopted in 1795 and the 'bigger' and 'smaller' ones considerably later, so it sounds more like when 1873 rolled around, somebody want to reuse the letter 'm', but since it was already in use for milli, they just said, 'but this is the BIG 'M' and that's how it got there... just my opinion, I could be hallucinating)
Seffix
Emperor Mongoose
Will the new Advanced Morphing Smartwheels be statted up?
collins355
Cosmic Mongoose
And equally, you're unlikely to be able to safely slew a large turret like that on a Trepida at 600knots in an atmosphere. TNE had rules against this.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Anything that flies is likely to get shot down.
They'll probably stick to nap of the earth, and lock the turret forwards at speed.
They'll probably stick to nap of the earth, and lock the turret forwards at speed.
Hopefully there is some common-sense rules regarding aerodynamics. A conventionally-designed tank that is not aerodynamic will have challenges maintaining its flight profile due to buffeting. That's one of the reasons I've constantly argued that starships like the subsidized trader with its' big fat wing roots can't possibly fly at mach speed except in the thinnest of atmosphere's. The amount of resistance and stress from that would be hell on the airframe and the pilot's efforts to control the ship. It's why everything you see that can go fast is sleek with minimal drag - it's not just a power issue.
I hope the threshold is lowered - like by a lot. The average person will find it challenging at just 100mph, and at 200mph the force of the wind would make any movement nearly impossible. Some of this can be addressed with a shroud, but using the grav bike as an example, you wouldn't be able to make any movements without debilitating results. Even what you are wearing will become an issue since the airflow will find any gap or crevice and cause additional pressure and/or negative effects on your movement.
It's one thing to sit in a cockpit with a windscreen in front of you and the top of your cockpit pushed back - but pilots would close the cockpit before combat. Open-airframe aircraft simply moved too slow to have to worry about such things.
I know everybody wants to think of the air-chases punks on grav bikes would have in urban environments, but those grav bikes would have governors on them to stop the rider from going so fast they'd get ripped off the bike (and, of course, you'd have the stupid ones removing them and flying so fast that they'd lose control or get ripped off, but that's just part of the narrative I suppose). One might even see downgraded engines/thrusters installed because they could use cheaper components since these vehicles would have practical maximum speeds and installing gear to go faster is a waste of credits. Think of it like this - you could install a 250cc engine or a 2,500cc engine on a ground bike- but if the max effective speed is the upper limit of the 250cc engine, you'd not see 2,500cc engines on anything but custom or special-build bikes. A guy did build a bike using a Dodge Viper engine, and set a record of 207mph on an unfaired motorcycle - but this was a one-off.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
There might be local ordnances on airspeed.
And then, you attach a reactionary rocket to hybdrize the gravitational module.
And then, you attach a reactionary rocket to hybdrize the gravitational module.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Probably both.
But a sixteen gee rocket should be able to outrun the missiles.
But a sixteen gee rocket should be able to outrun the missiles.
How are you defining a rocket vs. a missile?
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
If I'm pumping fuel through it to get propulsion, it's a rocket.
Unfortunately that's not a universalism. The generally accepted definition (at least with military) is that a missile is guided and a rocket is unguided. Arguably the Saturn V and Space Shuttle are missiles since they are piloted/guided, but NASA calls them rockets.
The liquid vs solid fuel is not universal either. Liquid fuel tends to have a higher specific impulse with separate fuel/oxidizer mixes, but there is nothing stopping you from making a Saturn V sized solid fuel rocket (just like smaller missiles, such as the old Lance SSM) were liquid fueled.
CordwainerFish
Emperor Mongoose
That's how Car Wars defines them, so case closed.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
If you use electricity to create propulsion, it's a Tesla.
Are you sure about that?
You describe is as a 1km wide disc, so we shall assume it is circular. The radius is therefore 0.5km. The area of that disc is pi()*0.5*0.5 = 0.7854 sq-km. This means that we have 1 million people squeezed into an area of less than 1 square km, our density must therefore be higher than the actual population: 1 mil / 0.7854 = 1.273 mil/sq-km.
We can confirm this by assuming a square disc with side length = 1km. This would give us an area of 1 sq-km with 1 million people for a density of 1 mil/sq-km.
These are 30-40 times that of Manhattan and are the equivalent of squeezing the entire population of Manhattan into ~40% of Central Park. Granted the average height of buildings in Manhattan is estimated to be only 180m vs the 274m for your city but that feels incredibly cramped.
Also, given the mass of all that city, I would expect the infrastructure to keep it aloft to be more significant, with multiple redundant systems.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
A thorough government survey in 1987 gave a clearer picture: an estimated 33,000 people resided within the walled city. Based on this survey, the walled city had a population density of approximately 1,255,000 inhabitants per square kilometre (3,250,000/sq mi) in 1987,[22] making it the most densely populated spot in the world.[44] Names in Kowloon Walled City were mostly Cantonese.[45]
Geir
Emperor Mongoose
Ouch, upside down (the equation) That's what I get for trying to do math after my bedtime and two drinks....
Yeah, that's what I thought too, which is why I said 'arcology' - which we really don't have stats for. My old assumption was a million per cubic kilometre and this is five times (now I'm doing math with no coffee) as dense - but still double (this I am more sure of) the stats for a space station accommodation.
Yes probably at least distributed and independently fed lifter units with battery backups, but at that scale its kind of abstracted. I'm pretty sure the 'vehicle parachute' option would be a bit odd, but at that TL its a grav chute anyway, so maybe that should be added.
Geir
Emperor Mongoose
I was thinking of that, but didn't know the stat (or didn't look it up, anyway - you don't have to know anything anymore, except how to ask a question...) so... that's 1.255 people per square metre???