Updated Vehicle Handbook in the works

[MasterGwydion]

This is why real-world units and thorough sanity checks throughout the rules are important; because the game benefits from being a universe simulator. The Rules-writers go with the assumption 'everything in the game works exactly like reality does -- except this particular specific hand-wave which we spell out to describe FTL travel'. That means that rules for air pressure at altitude, or solubility of stuff in water, or velocity to maintain a particular orbit, or etc DO NOT need to be written; the GM just uses (as much or as little of) the real world as needed.

Which is why I count the atmosphere of a planet as uniform. It simplifies it to the point where I do not have to constantly record the altitude of each and every combatant. Is it realistic, no, but it is good enough to play an RPG with.

 

[J. L. Brown]

Which is why I count the atmosphere of a planet as uniform. It simplifies it to the point where I do not have to constantly record the altitude of each and every combatant. Is it realistic, no, but it is good enough to play an RPG with.

Sure, at your table do what works for you. But other folks might choose different levels of simulation / simplicity -- and the role of the rules-writers is vastly easier if they do not need to create special rules to describe things like air pressure & etc.

The 'game works like reality' framework is simpler & shorter.

 

[MasterGwydion]

Sure, at your table do what works for you. But other folks might choose different levels of simulation / simplicity -- and the role of the Rules-writers is vastly easier if they do not need to create special rules to describe things like air pressure & etc.

The 'game works like reality' framework is simpler & shorter.

but doesn't translate into DMs

 

[phavoc]

Blue light drives... mumble... mumble.. Cherenkov... mumble.

I think I mentioned earlier that in a homebrew attempt to make an 'antigravity drive' using actual energy numbers for power input, there was almost no way to make something practical that couldn't be manipulated into a perpetual motion machine.

But I think I was looking at it to narrowly. A hydroelectric powerplant is essentially a gravity-driven perpetual energy machine driven by a perpetual falling of water, in a narrow sense.

But in the broader sense, it's not, because weather is the power source (okay, more like solar evaporation, wind, condensation, rain, and then gravity). So... this is why I like the 1000D limit*: and how I can 'explain' (yes, handwave) away not only m/g/lifter drives and the lack of giant thermal radiators on every single spaceship with a thrust greater than 0:

Look at the bigger energy picture: like the turbine in the dam, the m-drive is actually stealing power from a giant system, in the case of the 'anti-gravity' drive, it's the planet or star's entire space-time-warpy thing (not a a Real Physics Thing™ so don't quibble) - so you're 'borrowing' energy from the well and dumping energy (heat) into the well (yes, the heat is from the power plant and not so much the m-drive but it's running down a zucchini zuchai crystal conduit into the thing that makes the blue light glow (yes, I know I mixed in a j-drive part, but it's the make-believe/suspend belief idea, not the make-believe physics that matters (and I wanted to make a zucchini joke).

Point is gravity gradient makes it 'go' gravity gradient 'eats' the heat - net result - the planet gets ever so slightly warmer. Which also happens when you run that turbine in the damn.

*So why no m-drive past 1000D? Well, too little gradient from the nearby object and too shallow gradient from the galactic bulge to eke out more than 1%.

But it's all just a thing to allow enough suspended belief to play a TTRPG.
(Yeah, the conversation wander off this a bit, off of vehicles entirely, but I was typing erratically over time between meetings and you guys keep posting, which is not a bad thing).

I think the gravity well idea is a bit silly because it jumbles things up too much (and really, what's the point?). My biggest objection though is that, once again, an idea is injected without it being fully thought out. The biggest logical obstacle is that if an M-drive must operate against a gravity gradient and fails when the gravitic field is too weak or non-existent, then by that same logic, when it's closer in-system to the star or other large planetary object generating a field, then it should be MORE effecient and FASTER because the field by which it operates is also stronger. I don't see how one can claim it cannot work without a field being present and also claim that a much stronger field has zero effect on it. If we use the water analogy, taking water from higher up creates more force and you generate more power. The closer you are to the water source (i.e. your intake point compared to the generator) the weaker your power generation is.

IF the goal is to create this other drive, then why wouldn't we adopt previous Traveller drive tech that also already addresses the issue? For most versions, a 'deep space drive' is not present. And lets be fair here - there's very little reason for ships to be out that far unless they are Oort mining or surveying or some other task like that. One would also have to consider how much mass is required to generate such a field - would a brown dwarf have one? Will a gas giant? Will Planet X? I believe somewhere the newer rules now also say in order to emerge from jump space you have to also have a gravitational object present? I'm trying to recall that off top of my head but I believe that's been brought up as another change?

 

[phavoc]

No one worries about the effects of water pressure increasing with depth until they try to visit a deep sea trench in a tin can.
THEN it becomes a relevant topic that's resolved itself before you know it.

As long as one brings gasoline and ball bearings, one is good to go as deep as needed. Crushing is optional.

 

[Condottiere]

I suspect the General Unified Theory of Everything was behind the consolidation of propulsors.

I understand the drive to narratively connect everything, but this probably overshot it's mark.

 

[chibiko]

Blue light drives... mumble... mumble.. Cherenkov... mumble.

I think I mentioned earlier that in a homebrew attempt to make an 'antigravity drive' using actual energy numbers for power input, there was almost no way to make something practical that couldn't be manipulated into a perpetual motion machine.

But I think I was looking at it to narrowly. A hydroelectric powerplant is essentially a gravity-driven perpetual energy machine driven by a perpetual falling of water, in a narrow sense.

But in the broader sense, it's not, because weather is the power source (okay, more like solar evaporation, wind, condensation, rain, and then gravity). So... this is why I like the 1000D limit*: and how I can 'explain' (yes, handwave) away not only m/g/lifter drives and the lack of giant thermal radiators on every single spaceship with a thrust greater than 0:

Look at the bigger energy picture: like the turbine in the dam, the m-drive is actually stealing power from a giant system, in the case of the 'anti-gravity' drive, it's the planet or star's entire space-time-warpy thing (not a a Real Physics Thing™ so don't quibble) - so you're 'borrowing' energy from the well and dumping energy (heat) into the well (yes, the heat is from the power plant and not so much the m-drive but it's running down a zucchini zuchai crystal conduit into the thing that makes the blue light glow (yes, I know I mixed in a j-drive part, but it's the make-believe/suspend belief idea, not the make-believe physics that matters (and I wanted to make a zucchini joke).

Point is gravity gradient makes it 'go' gravity gradient 'eats' the heat - net result - the planet gets ever so slightly warmer. Which also happens when you run that turbine in the damn.

*So why no m-drive past 1000D? Well, too little gradient from the nearby object and too shallow gradient from the galactic bulge to eke out more than 1%.

But it's all just a thing to allow enough suspended belief to play a TTRPG.
(Yeah, the conversation wander off this a bit, off of vehicles entirely, but I was typing erratically over time between meetings and you guys keep posting, which is not a bad thing).

Almost certainly adding new unintended consequences, but you could link the 1,000D limit to the rating of the M-drive, with M1 having the 1,000D limit and each additional rating being able to travel farther out by (an arbitrary) additional number of hundreds of diameters.

The handwavy explanation for this would be that the improved technology of higher rated M-drives allow for a greater linkage with the weaker gravitational gradient. The inverse would also be true, but accelerations near a primary might be capped to the M-drive's rating to prevent overload and burnout of the systems (because reasons).

This would allow a Type-S to explore much further out than a Type-A before needing a DSMS, and would also allow advanced naval fleets of the line to comfortably assemble and manoeuvre in deep space without needing to DSMS installed (and allow the high M-drive ratings of warships to provide a strategic as well as tactical advantage).

 

[Jame Rowe]

I'd actually rather ignore the 1000 diameter limit entirely, as it makes empty hex jumps unusable.
Why? Clearly the M Drive is interacting with the gravity of the universe as a whole (acceleration effect still applies, which is why you have inertial compensation), but only to the rating of the specific drive (so a 1g drive only accelerates at 1g).
Why can't you use that to slag a planet? Because you can't do it without being onboard the ship, and will die horrible death if you try it.

 

[Geir]

I'm still plugging along, over 50 vehicles, some copying (sort of) old VHB ideas, others new. I did a version of TL9 grav vehicles today, the Skystrike G/Fighter and the Paladin Laser Grav Tank, bot sort of emulated (the Paladin much more closely). But that gave me an idea for a third vehicle: we see the struggle to change to a new paradigm, with 'fighter' and 'tanks', but why not push it further into COACC territory:

 

[collins355]

Err, isn't it rather poorly protected? (I guess that is what you meant by battlecruiser of the skies - rather like the British battlecruisers at Jutland!)

 

[Geir]

Err, isn't it rather poorly protected? (I guess that is what you meant by battlecruiser of the skies - rather like the British battlecruisers at Jutland!)

Yeah, can't get that speed if it's an AFV and making it bigger is even more problematic. It's a flying gunship that better get off the first shot... it is large enough to have a chance to absorb a few hits from a big gun, but one shot with a couple of bad crits could really ruin its day. "There seems to be something wrong with our Archangels today."

 

[Condottiere]

It's been strongly suggested that Beatty was guilty of malpractice at Jutland.

 

[IanBruntlett]

It's been strongly suggested that Beatty was guilty of malpractice at Jutland.

Interesting. What kind?

 

[collins355]

It's been strongly suggested that Beatty was guilty of malpractice at Jutland.

The malpractice was the ammunition stowage tolerated in order to get a high ROF. Suicidal.

 

[collins355]

Yeah, can't get that speed if it's an AFV and making it bigger is even more problematic. It's a flying gunship that better get off the first shot... it is large enough to have a chance to absorb a few hits from a big gun, but one shot with a couple of bad crits could really ruin its day. "There seems to be something wrong with our Archangels today."

At 35 MCr a pop that is an expensive mistake.

I would be interested to see what designs you have that are actually affordable for players.

 

[Condottiere]

There were other issues.

 

[Geir]

At 35 MCr a pop that is an expensive mistake.

I would be interested to see what designs you have that are actually affordable for players.

It came into my head after replicating, fairly well, the Paladin Tank in the current VHB. It is definitely at the highest end of vehicle designs - except things like flying cites and starports. But most of the vehicles will be things Travellers can either buy (or rent - easier to rent something that won't leave the planet, or at least not its vicinity) or will encounter in the course of adventures (though those two categories do not always overlap).

Real job is making me get in the car today, but I'll post something more Traveller 'owned' centric tonight or tomorrow.

 

[Geir]

Here is a vehicle many travellers could use.
I went on a detour fixing transceivers a bit - and satellite uplinks: another thing where tech is overcoming assumptions. It ate a space. Always. Not convenient for small vehicles at all. So now, new rules for satellite uplinks :
1) the transceiver needs to have a range of at least 500km,
2) Two TLs after introduction of the transceiver (basic model), it no longer requires a Space (phased array, built into the hull, whatever, it just doesn't need to east as much space as an airplane toilet.

Second change you'll see below. Short term life support: again, always a Space, even though the Space can cover 20 people. So I added a more expensive solution: a short term Life Support Seat - no Spaces but Cr5000 a pop, so if you have Spaces, it will be a better option, but if not, you have a choice. Those two things make the runabout below a possibility:

 

[Geir]

When I came up with the idea for a vacuum airship (TL12), it was a clever idea - nothing is lighter than hydrogen except... nothing. But I didn't think there would be a niche for it it in a universe with grav tech at TL8 and lifters by TL10. But it turns out to be a much cheaper choice, espcially if you're clever about it. This is a much cheaper, smaller and less luxurious housing option than the LuftHaus I made earlier, but I kind of like it. And it might be something a semi-retired Traveller might own:

 

[phavoc]

Which is why I count the atmosphere of a planet as uniform. It simplifies it to the point where I do not have to constantly record the altitude of each and every combatant. Is it realistic, no, but it is good enough to play an RPG with.

I think the gas giant atmosphere rules in JTAS have some things about how altitude can affect ship operations. You are right in that its much simpler to treat the atmosphere as uniform - except as has also pointed out that's not it really works. Yeah, if you wanna make it more like it works then you need to define altitude modifiers to make it work. This is where one looks to the rules to provide these tables, and players are free to modify, accept or deny as they choose to do so.

One of the reasons I brought this up was a pair of articles I read in the recent issues of AVW&ST. One talked about the Boom supersonic aircraft and it's flight tests and how it's getting closer to being able to safely generate sonic booms over land. The other was in reference to SpaceX recent rocket which also generated booms coming down and these sonic booms have the potential to cause structural damage via overpressure to ground locations, such as the people's homes who live around Boca Chica.

Traveller pretty much doesn't care what happens to civilian infrastructure in the long run as that's like talking about spreadsheets in space. In my mind, though, it would severely restrict some vehicle operations and pokes major logical holes in the idea that so many vehicles would routinely have supersonic speed built into them when it would be questionable if whether or not they could do such things and cause widespread damage to civilian and military (even ecological) targets. Some may not care what you do to enemy targets, but remember what you do, they do, and you can't always get perfect situations, so its quiet reasonable to expect these issues to occur on battlefields what won't always be in enemy territory. And if that is the case, then these limitations should be known and accounted for in at least the official book designs that track closer to what real-world designers have to assume would be inherent in many, if not all, of their designs.

TLR - supersonic craft cause sonic booms, and these booms can cause damage to ground targets - both yours and your enemies. So vehicle designers need to factor that into the vehicle design and create a vehicle that has to follow these design limitations and restrictions.