ATU Mixed FTL campaign setting

[navanod]

Lately I've been contemplating a near-Earth based on two premises. The first is that man gets to the stars and finds that there's a fair bit of sentient life out there, and that it is almost universally hostile to man and each other. Think Star Trek, but most of the races are more Klingon/Romulan than Vulcan.

The second is that multiple FTL drives exist. Using Mongoose rules as an example, there are four types.

1. Standard Jump drive - 1 week in j-space, 100 diameter limits, fuel requirements, etc. What we're all familiar with.

2. Warp Drive - something akin to 2300's stutterwarp, with a similar arbitrary range (7-10 lightyears, lets say). I'm also thinking of making it less effective in-system so ships still need regular maneuver drives for combat.

3. Hyperdrive - short jumps (1 parsec per day per M-drive rating), no large fuel requirements, etc. I was thinking of limiting it's use to Lagrange points with the point to point destination being stable (i.e. if you jump from Earths L4, you always wind up at the same point).

4. Worm drive - instantaneous travel, relies on naturally occuring wormholes which have to be discovered and mapped to be useful.

So, what are the ramifications of such a setting? Would one have a clear advantage over the others, such that it would become the default? Any other ideas?

 

[Rover]

Is there FTL radio communication that is faster than physical transport? If not, all other things being equal, the war like race with the fastest intersteller drive would probably conquor the rest, or at least cause so much havoc to ensure the others would never be a threat.

 

[aramis]

A lot depends on relative weapons tech and limits....

• if using the rather unrealistic 1 hp per 100TD limit, you wind up with drive tech dominant.
• If, instead, you limit weapons solely by volume, whomever needs the least fuel becomes dominant.
• If, as in TNE, you limit by surface area, least fuel again becomes fairly important.

Drive tech is only one small part. Without knowing the particulars of your design paradigm, one can't adequately determine how much of an effect the various drives will have.

Major interactions:

• Drive volumes
• fuel volumes
• weapon limits and volumes
• armor limits and volumes
• crew number and volume required

 

[navanod]

No, probably no FTL comms.

I don't know if the fastest would necessarily win out. The worm drive is obviously the fastest, but requires travel through specific points, as does the hyperdrive. That creates defensible chokepoints, limiting the number of places you'd have to defend. The warp drive gets you between systems at a fairly good clip, but any time gained is lost by in-system travel (depending on how limited it is in a gravity well). Jump drive is somewhere in the middle, since you can jump to any planets 100d limit in a similar amount of time, but the fuel tankage requirements give the other drives more space for weapons and armor.

 

[navanod]

Hmmm...I'll have to give it some thought and work up some guidelines. Good points, tho, Aramis.

 

[HG_B]

So, what are the ramifications of such a setting? Would one have a clear advantage over the others, such that it would become the default? Any other ideas?

Those with regular J drives would get wiped out. Strategically, the disadvantages vs. the Warp & Hyper are too great to overcome.

 

[whartung]

The Warpdrive has less range than a jump drive, but you don't say how much time it takes. 7-10 light years is 2-3 parsecs/hexes.

The Hyperdrive is much faster than the Jump drive until you reach Jump 6, even then it's a day faster. There's no comment on what the ultimate range of a Hyperdrive ship is (can it go 10 parsecs? Is there any down time? What are its fuel costs?). These also dramatically change communication times, especially in higher density subsectors.

Warp drive ships can, I guess, be intercepted in between systems. If there's some Warp detector (that's FTL), then fleets can move out system to intercept incoming fleets. Dunno about Hyperdrive.

Jump drives will only be used for long haul movements if it's substantially cheaper to own and operate than the alternatives, otherwise the flexibility of the other drives make the Jump drive obsolete. Kind of a Steam vs Diesel transition.

Wormholes will become centers of trade due to their instant communications and acting as hubs and jump off points to nearby systems. Depending on the cost of development I don't know if all wormholes would be developed or not. Long term they would, but if you have wormholes in 3 adjacent systems, I doubt they'd be a priority with the alternate drives available. If it was just wormhole and Jump drive, then, yes, they'd all be developed as quickly as practical. But if it's a difference of investment of however many zillion credits into development vs a days travel, the priority would certainly go down.

Is wormhole an ship engine or a gate technology?

 

[HG_B]

The Warpdrive has less range than a jump drive, but you don't say how much time it takes. 7-10 light years is 2-3 parsecs/hexes.

The Hyperdrive is much faster than the Jump drive until you reach Jump 6, even then it's a day faster. There's no comment on what the ultimate range of a Hyperdrive ship is

See MGT core rules that the OP references....

 

[RainOfSteel]

Lately I've been contemplating a near-Earth based on two premises. The first is that man gets to the stars and finds that there's a fair bit of sentient life out there, and that it is almost universally hostile to man and each other.

You may want to read Old Man's War, by John Scalzi. Probably one of the greatest SF novels ever written, and it uses pretty much exactly that setting.

 

[whartung]

See MGT core rules that the OP references....

Would you summarize these for those of us who don't have MGT?

 

[navanod]

Actually, I'm putting together a rough list of specs. If I end up writing it up, it will probably be geared towards GT:IW, but I'm working on making things as system-agnostic as possible.

 

[navanod]

Okay, here's a very rough draft of drive comparisons. For all intents and purposes, it can be assumed that racial variance with regards to hull construction, weapons, armor, crew requirements, maneuver drives, and power plants will be relatively insignificant.

I'm using GT and CT references because those are what I'm most comfortable with, but I can already see there's going to be a boatload of house rules involved.

No FTL comms.

Standard CT TL will range from 10-15, with a solid average of 12-13.

All standard weapons will be available at the appropriate TL, and the maximum number of weapons will be based off GT:IW surface area.

Power references are in GT MW.

GT doesn't use PP fuel, so that may be one thing I have to reinstate for GT.

I haven't settled on cost comparisons yet; that may be one of the things I use to balance things out down the road.

Jump drive - (Jump Rating +1) per 100 tons of ship. Uses 10% of ship volume per jump rating for fuel. 20 MW power per ton of drive. 1 week in jump regardless of distance, max range 8 parsecs, 100 diameter limits.

Hyper Drive - 2 x (Drive Rating+1) per 100 tons of ship (i.e. twice as heavy as a jump drive). No additional fuel required beyond power plant fuel. 20 MW power per ton of drive. 1 parsec per week per Drive Rating, max range 5 parsecs. Entry and exit can only occur at Lagrange points, and these points are permanently connected.

Warp Drive - (Drive Rating +1) per 100 tons of ship. Requires double standard power plant fuel. 35 MW per ton of drive. Maximum range 3 parsecs. 1 parsec per week per Drive Rating. Must discharge in gravity well, drive NOT efficient enough for combat within a system, so must use standard maneuver drives.

Worm Drive - 5 tons per 100 tons of ship. Requires flat 20% of ship volume as fuel per worm jump. 15 MW per ton of drive. Maximum range is theoretically unlimited using natural wormholes, and travel time is instantaneous. Ship-mounted worm drives can only use naturally occurring wormholes, which usually have fixed endpoints.

Worm Gate - Artificial wormhole gates can be constructed. The gate itself takes up 50% of the tonnage of the largest ship that can use it. Requires fuel equal to 20% of the volume of a ship sent through it. 60 MW per gate ton. Artificial gates can have variable endpoints (i.e. one gate can specifically 'dial' another gate at will) so effectively one gate can connect to all others, but can't connect to a natural wormhole.


BTW, thanks to RainOfSteel for the book tip. It's pretty good stuff, although a bit more trans-human than I contemplated for this setting. Definitely worth a read.

 

[rancke]

GT doesn't use PP fuel, so that may be one thing I have to reinstate for GT.

CT power plant fuel consumption is one of the major blots on CT ship construction. It's mind-bogglingly inefficient. Suspension-of-disbelief-snappingly inefficient. GT ship construction had some boo-boos of its own, but implausible fusion power plants wasn't one of them. (All IMO).


Hans

 

[navanod]

That's one of the reasons I'm running with GT - thrust higher than 6-G, power plant fuel, computer size, and sensor rules are the others. Plus I've been playing GURPS forever.

 

[Rigel Stardin]

What I did was for simplicity sake.
Fuel limits the range of you ship. You can find my forumals in the Library Files, "The Coti Build".