Calculation needed...

[Rover]

Fox's Master was out here on my behalf. After reading through the thread and digesting all the math, I came up with this:

Intercept Calculator

Let me know what you think.

Thanks

I did some spreadsheets like this years ago, I'll see if I can find them. The spreadsheet seems to be making some different assumptions than the origial problem. In the spreadsheet the target is travelling at constant velocity before the interceptor leaves and in the problem it is accelerating. This will change the target displacement figure.

I see you also added vectors and Trig to your sheet. In the original problem they both left the same point along the same tragectory.

But this gives me something to do in a saturday Morning. I'm gonna play around with this.

R

 

[D. Foxx]

The spreadsheet seems to be making some different assumptions than the origial problem.

Fox's Master relayed the initial scenario incorrectly. Fox's Master and I play two different adventures, one I'm a player, hence the user names you see, the other I'm the GM. In the game in which I GM, Fox's Master's group is on a space station when asked to intercept a ship. The backdrop is that the ship jumped into the system and was attacked. During the course of the battle, the ship is disabled. That leaves it with the residual velocity and course. It is passing the station at a range of approximately 1.12 million KM with a constant velocity of 35280 m/s with a bearing of about 90 degrees. That is what is driving the need for this calculator.

I like to give some technical details and jargon at times to add flavor and I like to keep them in line with the game mechanics. So the pilot says "intercept course od 16.1 degrees plotted, intercept time 2.88 hours and we will make turnover at 1.54 hours."

I wanted to build something that would auto calculate so that I wouldn't have to keep re-doing the math.