aerodynamic streamlining
- Thread starter flykiller
- Start date
Major B
SOC-14 1K
Flykiller, I voted other because none of the votes matched my take.
I don't think you have to have streamlining on your ship but if it isn't streamlined then you are limited on what you can do in atmosphere and those limits should be played out when they are relevant to the story. I agree that the artwork should reflect the design.
The same applies (using T5.09 rule set) to what kind of landing gear you have and whether lifters are installed. If you have skids, you're limited to a tarmac. Legs and pads are needed for wilderness landings. If you don't have lifters, then you better have wheels and a runway or a floatation hull for a glide landing on water.
Yes, precisely. But what would compel a vessel of significant size (as distinct from a rodent of extraordinary size) to land? If those are known issues, what are the reasons, short of emergency and crew-threatening situations, when a captain would even try to drop a 5k-50kDton vessel down onto a planet?
What he said.
I think my take on designs may have been shaped by a deep 2300AD period in the 90's, with far too much time spent designing ships for Star Cruiser games.
Military circumstances is the only thing I can think of. You've got a ship you want to take to cover to protect it from attack. Maybe it's damaged and the world is facing imminent attack. Choice between scuttling it or taking it to some covered position on the planet. The only worlds that are likely to have such a construct are likely to also have orbital facilities, so the only reason I see is if the orbital space was going to become a problem and the ship was too important to scuttle or leave to its fate.
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
They still have to deal with air resistance, so there are speed bumps.
Major B
SOC-14 1K
I did in one of the CT published adventures but I can't remember which one it was. Maybe Research Station Gamma.
Major B
SOC-14 1K
No, I misremembered. I think there was a storm in that one but that was the reason to use a submersible to get into the station. We didn't have to fly through it.
I'll post if I can find the right one but I remember flying a type S in a typhoon once.
I used to include it in the narrative and task rolls for the pilot when scooping for fuel in gas giants. At those points streamlining was a pretty useful thing to have...
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
You might have been thinking of Tarsus, which has an extreme axial tilt of 61 degrees combined with a dense atmosphere. That would put a premium on streamlining of any vehicle operated in the atmosphere.
In my games I prefer airframe, streamlined and non-streamlined options which provide tangible in-game distinctions. Low-tech planets can still provide challenges via high speed aircraft which are just fine carrying starship grade missiles.
Standard mustering out benefit starships, which most players will be using, may not be able to intimidate local law or military or outrun them. I feel it provides more challenges to players.
Standard mustering out benefit starships, which most players will be using, may not be able to intimidate local law or military or outrun them. I feel it provides more challenges to players.
I'm afraid I'm not understanding the phrasing here.
Sorry. Most spaceships which characters receive as a material benefit are at least "streamlined". But depending on the RAW they ARE NOT "airframes".
My example is Megatraveller. Regardless of other criticisms of the MT:
Airframes allow faster vehichles and ships in atmospheric situations, compared to merely streamlined ships.
The concept of Airframes allows a distinction that makes low tech worlds a little bit more challenging. Not overwhelming, but it does shrink a gap.
None of the starships received as a mustering out benefit are airframes (heh heh heh) :devil:
I like using low tech solutions to challenge/counter players high tech advantages.
My example is Megatraveller. Regardless of other criticisms of the MT:
Airframes allow faster vehichles and ships in atmospheric situations, compared to merely streamlined ships.
The concept of Airframes allows a distinction that makes low tech worlds a little bit more challenging. Not overwhelming, but it does shrink a gap.
None of the starships received as a mustering out benefit are airframes (heh heh heh) :devil:
I like using low tech solutions to challenge/counter players high tech advantages.
Oh, so you're saying the locals have fast aircraft. Works for TL6 forward. Of course, the players can still evade them by gaining altitude. In a standard atmosphere, a streamlined craft's top speed goes up 50% at about 3000-4000 meters where pressure drops to around 0.7 atmospheres (thin), and it basically stops having to deal with atmospheric limits above about 6000 meters, where the pressure drops below 0.4 atmospheres (very thin). Since spacecraft don't have to worry about a stall speed, they can get to 6000 meters from the ground in about 18 seconds by going vertical. Well, the scout can. Whether the free trader can or can't depends on whether you adopt that MT SOM "pushing the drive limits" thing - which, actually, it's impossible for them to take off from the larger worlds without some sort of brief overspeed ability.
After a bit more altitude, they can get above the operational ceiling of the aircraft. Most aircraft are going to top out around 15,000-20,000 meters. Special designs could reach 26,000 or a bit more. You'd need rocket-propelled craft or something else that didn't need external oxygen beyond that. Assuming the free trader can overthrust to 2g for a couple minutes, and assuming a 1g planet, figure a vertical rise puts it at ~12,000 meters in 30 seconds, 32,000 meters 30 seconds later, 62,000 meters 30 seconds after that. They're still within missile range, but they're up where space-capable high altitude missiles are needed; missiles depending on air flow aren't going to be able to maneuver at that altitude.
It takes longer if they're only doing a 40%/1.4g overthrust, less if they're doing a 400%/4g overthrust - I think that's 50,000 meters after a minute from launch.
Of course, that requires one to think in three dimensions. Players sometimes forget there's more than just the two.
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You are absolutely right if escape is the ONLY goal the players must achieve. There may be other situations where escape is not the desired outcome and the group have to tough it out. One might be sneaking NOE to a location. Avionics and streamlining determine speeds possible. Patrolling aircraft may have been previously launched flying at faster speeds and already have "the high ground" at combat initiation. Sometimes being a "Big Damn Hero" is more important than being a mere "Traveller".
Up until TL18, avionics and thrust determine NOE speed; you don't develop enough speed out of the system for aerodynamics to be a factor below TL18. Patroling craft in the immediate vicinity will have the high ground, yes - until about a minute after the player decides to take it. That becomes more of a tactical consideration: staying low effectively gives you cover from direct fire weapons beyond the horizon, even if it means the nearby opposing flyer has the high ground, but sufficient height can put you out of reach of most battlefield weapons so that you need only worry about missiles and ground-to-orbit weapons.
The aerodynamic aircraft's advantage is speed - and agility, if you applied maneuver enhancement. They can be very hard to hit with anything but missiles. That's really where aerodynamics excel. The spacecraft's advantage is that it can choose its "battle ground", staying low to avoid weapons and sensors over the horizon or going high to place itself out of most of their reach, being vulnerable only during transition. That, and the fact that the basic spacecraft hull is stout enough to ignore most gunfire from aircraft.
If the vehicle can be tracked, it can't out maneuver a laser or other light speed weapon.
I would agree with that. Unfortunately, our TL15 Vilani friends don't seem to have discovered that level of tracking technology, at least not from the way the various game versions handle things. As near as I can tell, neither have the Terrans - er, Solomani. Neither Striker nor MT exempts lasers from that agility modifier. That's one of the more curious instances of lost technology.
That might actually be an interesting home rule, letting lasers with point defense fire control ignore agility penalties as well as target movement penalties; the canon rule lets them ignore movement penalties but leaves them vulnerable to that wiggle-jiggle. That kind of home rule would draw a clear difference between lasers and energy weapons on the battlefield, give them different roles.
kilemall
SOC-14 5K
I would agree with the general statement, except in terms of what a hit means.
There is hit, and then there is damage.
I see agility as conferring not so much a generated miss, as maneuvering the ship between last known data point the firing ship has and when the laser arrives to pitch yaw roll and or accel such that the laser strikes at an oblique angle and does no effective damage.
I have home rules for a greater chance of no damage at high ranges, and conversely a greater chance to do damage or maybe multiples of damage as there is less relative maneuver time, less potential endpoints to deliver effective damage, so the shots do not have to spread so much and the beam itself is more coherent and therefore delivering more energy.
