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Got Life-boats ? - Canon or Not

An interesting idea for an IYTU dramatic event to throw at your players, but the exploding drive thing was only intended to reflect the CT Book-2/High Guard business about ships exploding/vaporizing on certain critical hit results.

Yes it's a side-issue. It just struck me as an possibly entertaining source of shipboard incidents with walls bulging and the hull getting bent out of shape etc as the gravity field goes wrong.
 
Yes it's a side-issue. It just struck me as an possibly entertaining source of shipboard incidents with walls bulging and the hull getting bent out of shape etc as the gravity field goes wrong.
I forgot about the side-on issue.

a 4.5m fall in 3G is almost certainly going to be about 0.56 sec and about 16.3m/s... about the same as a 13.5m fall in 1G. That is going to go WHUMP...

In a perpendicular deck design (like the broadsword or AHL), it's almost a non-issue. A few people fall down, and people struggle for a walk or crawl to a chair. Everyone reclines, and puts their feet up, and 3G has a tolerance of several hours. People walking have a tolerance of about 10 minutes IIRC from the NASA centrifuge data.
 
Yes it's a side-issue. It just struck me as an possibly entertaining source of shipboard incidents with walls bulging and the hull getting bent out of shape etc as the gravity field goes wrong.

Hull's not likely to be bothered by gravity field fluctuations of 6G or under. Those interior partitions though, and the furnishings and such - in ships with decks parallel to the line of flight like Free Traders and Scout/Couriers - that could get entertaining.

It depends on your view of the technology though. MT describes the grav drives as interacting with planetary gravitational fields to produce motion. Fluctuations there are going to affect the ship's thrust and are likely to be countered almost instantly by the ship's inertial systems; occupant might get dizzy or airsick, but nothing more dramatic.

The higher tech reactionless thruster plates, with their description of use of "sub-atomic force-based technology," appear to be acting on matter within the thruster plate to "write" momentum onto the subatomic particles directly. Odd failures there would result in turning forces that affected the ship's maneuver, not on any odd effects inside the ship (presuming the inertial system is functioning). However, that technology has the potential to get nasty: one could instead re-imagine it as "writing" momentum onto the mass of the ship and its contents to provide inertialess movement. In that case, regions of the ship could be imparted with different degrees of acceleration, creating shear forces and situations that the inertial dampers might not be able to compensate for. One passenger might find himself (and pretty much everything in a narrow column forward of a particular section of the thruster plate) suddenly accelerated into the forward wall, while the passenger standing next to him was unaffected.
 
In that case, regions of the ship could be imparted with different degrees of acceleration, creating shear forces and situations that the inertial dampers might not be able to compensate for. One passenger might find himself (and pretty much everything in a narrow column forward of a particular section of the thruster plate) suddenly accelerated into the forward wall, while the passenger standing next to him was unaffected.

That's the sort of thing I was imagining. I have no idea if it's plausible but could make for some entertaining situations if it was.
 
I forgot about the side-on issue.

a 4.5m fall in 3G is almost certainly going to be about 0.56 sec and about 16.3m/s... about the same as a 13.5m fall in 1G. That is going to go WHUMP...

In a perpendicular deck design (like the broadsword or AHL), it's almost a non-issue. A few people fall down, and people struggle for a walk or crawl to a chair. Everyone reclines, and puts their feet up, and 3G has a tolerance of several hours. People walking have a tolerance of about 10 minutes IIRC from the NASA centrifuge data.

Yeah the WHUMP is the thing I was wondering about - a Marie Celeste with the crew turned into puree inside their vacc suits.

Or even a hijacker: max acceleration, strap in, kill the floor plates for everyone else, WHUMP.
 
It depends on your view of the technology though. MT describes the grav drives as interacting with planetary gravitational fields to produce motion.

Thinking about this some more I see it as kinda like using magnetic polarity on gravity fields.

So

your ship is heading to a planet so the M-drive set's the ship's polarity to positive to make the planet's gravity pull the ship faster

your ship is heading from one planet to another so the polarity of the front of the ship is set positive to make the planet ahead pull more and the polarity of the ship to the rear is set negative to make the planet behind push more

your ship is flying between two planets so the polarity to the front is set positive to both in such a way their two pull vectors combine to give you the forward vector you want and then as the ship passes between the two planets the two polarities are gradually switched to negative so their gravity pushes instead of pulls

that might lend itself to the possibility of a failing M-drive setting the polarities wrong and the ship being pulled apart.



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A possibly fun scenario using the idea of a ship flying at 3G ahead with floor plates negating it and then the plates failing - if i am picturing the physics right - is if the players survive the WHUMP into the back of the ship then they might have to *climb up* the ship to get to the bridge against 3G i.e. mountaineering in space.
 
A possibly fun scenario using the idea of a ship flying at 3G ahead with floor plates negating it and then the plates failing - if i am picturing the physics right - is if the players survive the WHUMP into the back of the ship then they might have to *climb up* the ship to get to the bridge against 3G i.e. mountaineering in space.

The same thing could be said for a ship that loses gravity/inertial compensation that also happens to find itself tumbling end over end like a centifuge.
 
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...your ship is heading from one planet to another so the polarity of the front of the ship is set positive to make the planet ahead pull more and the polarity of the ship to the rear is set negative to make the planet behind push more ...

As I understand it, the grav-based drives lose effectiveness outside of a planetary gravity field. In MT (as defined by MT Errata), drive thrust is halved beyond a range of about 250,000 km. At that point, I think you're mainly working with the star's gravity field. At least, that's what it works out to for an earth-sized primary in a sunlike star's habitable zone, if I did the math right.

...
that might lend itself to the possibility of a failing M-drive setting the polarities wrong and the ship being pulled apart....

Hull's too strong for that, and the locus of thrust is the thruster itself, ergo it would be the thruster that was pulled apart, not the ship.

...A possibly fun scenario using the idea of a ship flying at 3G ahead with floor plates negating it and then the plates failing - if i am picturing the physics right - is if the players survive the WHUMP into the back of the ship then they might have to *climb up* the ship to get to the bridge against 3G i.e. mountaineering in space.

I'm not sure the plates can fail all at the same time short of someone turning them all off from the bridge. Also, I understand that the floor plates and the inertial compensators are two separate pieces of equipment. Failure of the floor plates leaves one floating with no movement relative to the ship interior (other than whatever the individual brought with him at the time of the failure) regardless of the ship's acceleration, as the compensators are compensating for that acceleration. Failure of the inertial compensators leaves the person with a backward acceleration toward the drives AND a floorward 1 G acceleration since the floor plates continue to function normally, meaning the floor essentially becomes a steep hill, not a vertical surface. One also presumes someone is still in the pilot's seat, so someone is at the controls to take remedial action. Of course, there are ships with small enough crews that this might not be the case.
 
As I understand it, the grav-based drives lose effectiveness outside of a planetary gravity field. In MT (as defined by MT Errata), drive thrust is halved beyond a range of about 250,000 km. At that point, I think you're mainly working with the star's gravity field. At least, that's what it works out to for an earth-sized primary in a sunlike star's habitable zone, if I did the math right.

Yes, I was forgetting the sun - probably the most important bit most of the time.

Another thought coming out of that is maybe the M-drive either not working or only working weakly if the ship misjumps into empty space.



Hull's too strong for that, and the locus of thrust is the thruster itself, ergo it would be the thruster that was pulled apart, not the ship.

Would the locus of the thrust be the thruster if it was increasing the push and pull of external gravitic forces?

Although even if so the thruster being pulled apart could be the end of the engineering bay.

Or, as a h/t to the misjump rule related to missing maintenance maybe if the ship is old or unmaintained?

I don't know - I like the idea of the ship creaking or a wall bulging or in extreme circumstances an airlock popping as a result of shear forces created by the thrusters combined with misalignment caused by lack of maintenance creating cool "scare the players" effects.

So in this explanation of M-drive part of the annual maintenance would be making sure the ship has everything in the proper alignment to withstand the range of shear forces the thrusters could create +n%.


I'm not sure the plates can fail all at the same time short of someone turning them all off from the bridge. Also, I understand that the floor plates and the inertial compensators are two separate pieces of equipment. Failure of the floor plates leaves one floating with no movement relative to the ship interior (other than whatever the individual brought with him at the time of the failure) regardless of the ship's acceleration, as the compensators are compensating for that acceleration. Failure of the inertial compensators leaves the person with a backward acceleration toward the drives AND a floorward 1 G acceleration since the floor plates continue to function normally, meaning the floor essentially becomes a steep hill, not a vertical surface.

Makes sense. Even if they had the same power source they might have some kind of emergency battery supply if that power source failed.

One also presumes someone is still in the pilot's seat, so someone is at the controls to take remedial action. Of course, there are ships with small enough crews that this might not be the case.

Yes, or the ex-marine combat dude is left to sit in the bridge and shout if any lights turn red while the people with ship repair skills are all down in the engineering bay trying to fix a minor problem with the M-drive and then WHUMP.

Just thoughts aimed at creating interesting situations.

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Example: you can get people hired to crew ships to certain locations e.g. I crewed a sailing boat from the UK to the med. many moons ago with the flight back paid for so...

Players arrive at a planet with an ancient subsidized merchant which goes between two C systems and hasn't been properly maintained for years and are hired to take it back the 2-3 jumps needed to get it to an A star port for repairs. They are offered danger money (x4) for the trip, tickets back to pick up their own ship and double pay on the return trip.

The situation itself is just a haunted house situation with constant creaking and bulging and weird noises mixed in with constant repair encounters so it feels like the ship is going to fall apart any minute with maybe some NPC crew members to start freaking out and needing sedating etc or a plot by the ship owners to blow it up and collect the insurance by planting a bomb set to go off in jump space.
 
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The same thing could be said for ship that loses gravity/inertial compensation that also happens to find itself tumbling end over end like a centifuge.

Yes, could be some fun situations created out of this kind of thing - especially during a fight or emergency repairs.
 
Yes, I was forgetting the sun - probably the most important bit most of the time.

Another thought coming out of that is maybe the M-drive either not working or only working weakly if the ship misjumps into empty space. ...

Game makes it a straightforward full thrust up to about 10 diameters and half after that. 10 diameters, 20 radii, 1/400 G field for a 1 G world - but 1/3200 G for a 1/8 G size 1 world. If you feel the strange urge to make things complicated IYTU, you can adjust the distance by world size: for a size 1 world, the grav thruster works fully to 3.5 diameters, half effect beyond that. You might further rule that it halves again in deep space 10 AU out from the local sun, which puts the gas giants within reach but means you're at quarter speed beyond them. In interstellar space, you might rule that there isn't sufficient field for the grav thrusters to produce any meaningful thrust.

Of course, there's not much need for thrust if your crew finds themselves in interstellar space without the fuel and resources for a very, very long trip.

...Would the locus of the thrust be the thruster if it was increasing the push and pull of external gravitic forces? ...

Yes, unless you altered the description of how the TL11 reactionless thruster works in your TU by saying it was acting on the ship's entire mass rather than on the thruster plate.

... Although even if so the thruster being pulled apart could be the end of the engineering bay. ...

Oh no, the engineering bay would still be there. Smashed and riddled with shrapnel from the exploding drive, and in hard vacuum, but definitely still there. :D

... Yes, or the ex-marine combat dude is left to sit in the bridge and shout if any lights turn red while the people with ship repair skills are all down in the engineering bay trying to fix a minor problem with the M-drive and then WHUMP. ...

Type, "Emergency maneuver drive shut down," into the search box in the bridge computer, then follow the instructions. I'm sure there'll still be people alive in the engine room by the time you finish entering in the sequence - assuming the drive doesn't overload and explode before you finish. :devil:

... Players arrive at a planet with an ancient subsidized merchant which goes between two C systems and hasn't been properly maintained for years and are hired to take it back the 2-3 jumps needed to get it to an A star port for repairs. They are offered danger money (x4) for the trip, tickets back to pick up their own ship and double pay on the return trip. ...

Excessive. There are desperate and naive players stranded without transport on the world who will gladly take the job for only danger money x2 and no return trip funds. Don't overpay when you can capitalize on someone's desperation. :D

... The situation itself is just a haunted house situation with constant creaking and bulging and weird noises mixed in with constant repair encounters so it feels like the ship is going to fall apart any minute with maybe some NPC crew members to start freaking out and needing sedating etc or a plot by the ship owners to blow it up and collect the insurance by planting a bomb set to go off in jump space.

The jump grid is overdue for maintenance. Isolated elements flicker occasionally, creating very brief and very localized partial jump space intrusions into the ship. Over the course of the trip, small sections of bulkhead walls suddenly frost up as they drop to freezing temperatures, making creaking and popping sounds as they cool and then warm back to normal temperature. At other points, they look like they turned liquid for a fraction of a second, sloughing briefly downward and then instantly solidifying. The air temperature in rooms suddenly drops to freezing. The computer monitor suddenly blanks and reboots. Alarms go off at random, reading vacuum in one room when it has normal pressure, reading fire in another when there is no fire. Lighting suddenly flashes to extreme brilliance and then burns out. An unlucky NPC in the wrong place at the wrong time suddenly collapses, his body temperature in the 30's (Fahrenheit); you manage to revive him and he is completely berserk, uncontrollably psychotic. You hear another NPC screaming and run to find him trapped ankle-deep in the floor, his ankles now merged with the floorplate. You get up from your bridge post to stretch your legs and hear crackling behind you, look back to see your chair is covered in frost.
 
The jump grid is overdue for maintenance. Isolated elements flicker occasionally, creating very brief and very localized partial jump space intrusions into the ship. Over the course of the trip, small sections of bulkhead walls suddenly frost up as they drop to freezing temperatures, making creaking and popping sounds as they cool and then warm back to normal temperature. At other points, they look like they turned liquid for a fraction of a second, sloughing briefly downward and then instantly solidifying. The air temperature in rooms suddenly drops to freezing. The computer monitor suddenly blanks and reboots. Alarms go off at random, reading vacuum in one room when it has normal pressure, reading fire in another when there is no fire. Lighting suddenly flashes to extreme brilliance and then burns out. An unlucky NPC in the wrong place at the wrong time suddenly collapses, his body temperature in the 30's (Fahrenheit); you manage to revive him and he is completely berserk, uncontrollably psychotic. You hear another NPC screaming and run to find him trapped ankle-deep in the floor, his ankles now merged with the floorplate. You get up from your bridge post to stretch your legs and hear crackling behind you, look back to see your chair is covered in frost.

Awesome.
 
J-space is, in my opinion, the most 'undeveloped' element of Traveller but one so intrinsic to such that there would be no game without it.
 
J-space is, in my opinion, the most 'undeveloped' element of Traveller but one so intrinsic to such that there would be no game without it.

agreed. my only problem is that I keep wanting to make it more like warhammer 40,000's Warp, which, while awesome in its own way, is not really suitable for traveller.

that said, I am personally in favour of some things being unexplained, as I feel a little mystery is important to sci-fi. the players don#t need to know how everything works.....
 
TNE was going to explore the nature of jump space, or more specifically how psionics and jump dimensions are intertwined, and the existence of meta-conscious entities living in these higher dimensions.
 
see, I think that's cool, but I'm really tempted to take that down the "demonic possession" route.

it can be made to work, and be cool. it just doesn't quite gel with what I feel of as "traveller"
 
agreed. my only problem is that I keep wanting to make it more like warhammer 40,000's Warp, which, while awesome in its own way, is not really suitable for traveller.

Yes, although if the M-drive and J-drive are deemed to revolve around gravity manipulation then at least Telekinesis and Teleport from the original psionics rules could be treated as possible variations on the same theme. The foundation would need to be more sciencey for Traveller - like a power supply for example rather than just mental power or at least constant eating e.g. spot a psion by the stick thin dude who is constantly eating.
 
agreed. my only problem is that I keep wanting to make it more like warhammer 40,000's Warp, which, while awesome in its own way, is not really suitable for traveller.
I personally think 40K arised from GW's in-house Traveller games... keep in mind: it was announced right as GDW was ending most 3rd party licenses...
 
the 1st version of 40k was rather generic ( a thin booklet only) with Marines and Space Orcs...our Traveller group bought the rules to help resolve mass combat scenarios (which it did OK). I was the only one that thought using Striker was a good idea...
 
the 1st version of 40k was rather generic ( a thin booklet only) with Marines and Space Orcs...our Traveller group bought the rules to help resolve mass combat scenarios (which it did OK). I was the only one that thought using Striker was a good idea...

The 1987 "Rogue Trader" was NOT thin. It was a 1" thick hardcover... 2E was the thin booklets with limited fluff... And RT screams "Traveller Influences" loudly.
 
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