• Welcome to the new COTI server. We've moved the Citizens to a new server. Please let us know in the COTI Website issue forum if you find any problems.

Cargo Capacity and volume and mass

Now that leads me to another question, "Has anyone proposed rules for attitude control systems in Traveller?"
I assume the evade function from LBB2 is nothing but attitude control viffing and yawing, that LBB5 agility is main thruster accel to generate those large misses that implies some drastic attitude changes, and that aiming main spinals is generally only possible with some agility as opposed to accel.

So all implied but obviously pretty rapid and robust. Call it 1/10 of maximum G rating.
 
Prehaps MgT doesn't have/had the bad actors that we have/had.

It was put in place because people would get all grumpy and then go back and, essentially, delete all of their old posts. So Management deemed it necessary to prevent that from happening. Maybe the MgT forum folks don't care.

Perhaps the policy should be revisited, but as they say, policy is the scar tissue of an organizations life.
Then there's tactical editing (gaslighting) -- post something inflammatory to provoke a reaction, then edit it to something innocuous so it looks like the respondent's reply is an unhinged reaction to nothing in particular.
 
Now that leads me to another question, "Has anyone proposed rules for attitude control systems in Traveller?"
When would this come into play?

I mean, have you seen any of the SpaceX crewed missions and such? Where you have crews essentially staring at flat panel displays until they feel the "thunk" of the docking lock? I know it's a dramatic scene in, like Apollo 13, you know, during training. But, the ships are big enough, the consequences large enough, to make that whole concept automated.

I don't even know if the SpaceX guys are qualified to do that manually should the systems go down. I haven't the slightest idea (I'm not slighting them, they may well have not been trained for it, it could simply be a mission abort mode where they just need to be able to deorbit properly).
 
When would this come into play?
Ahh in the design phase you give acceleration in yaw, pitch, and roll. If you only have one main thruster direction you will need to point the main thruster in the correct direction before doing evasive maneuver. Does your ship react as fast as an F-16 or is it more like a KC135? Or worse yet a mega container ship.
 
Now that leads me to another question, "Has anyone proposed rules for attitude control systems in Traveller?"
Yes. Hunter was amused but not buying it.
A lot of odd ideas were thrown at hunter during T20 developement.
 
When would this come into play?

I mean, have you seen any of the SpaceX crewed missions and such? Where you have crews essentially staring at flat panel displays until they feel the "thunk" of the docking lock? I know it's a dramatic scene in, like Apollo 13, you know, during training. But, the ships are big enough, the consequences large enough, to make that whole concept automated.

I don't even know if the SpaceX guys are qualified to do that manually should the systems go down. I haven't the slightest idea (I'm not slighting them, they may well have not been trained for it, it could simply be a mission abort mode where they just need to be able to deorbit properly).
As I posted, during the semi randomized Evade/Agility portion of space combat, spinal aiming if that is an optional thing.

Possibly in close quarters maneuver near a space station/asteroid.

Automation is likely even for the above, if only to avoid predictable tendencies.
 
The automation would reduce the piloting of grav and space vehicles to be akin to playing today's video games.
 
Last edited:
As it should be!

This stuff is DANGEROUS, EXPENSIVE, and can lead to CATASTROPHIC consequences when things go bad.

Let the computers do this.
But the human has to be there to prevent those crazy machine errors.

One of the Pirx the Pilot stories goes into an AI robot that is thwarted in its plan to propagate its kind by a non compliant hesitant captain.

Oh hey, it got made into a movie and I see a remake is in the cards.


Pirx is so Traveller gritty, highly recommended.
 
But, the ships are big enough, the consequences large enough, to make that whole concept automated.
Not concerned about the automation vs manual switches, was wanting to be able to figure the ability of an overloaded ship to maintain the proper orientation of the drives on a slingshot maneuver around a brown dwarf or simular star that is not too deadly to aproach.
 
How many catastrophic airline accidents these days are due to crew error and how many due to autopilot error?
An interesting question. Last I saw, Pilot error was still the largest cause for plane accidents. I would love to know what the ratio between pilot, autopilot, as well as the combined pilot and computerized equipment are. And what is the trend, is it shifting over time.
 
Not concerned about the automation vs manual switches, was wanting to be able to figure the ability of an overloaded ship to maintain the proper orientation of the drives on a slingshot maneuver around a brown dwarf or simular star that is not too deadly to aproach.
Sorry, you're not going to "seat of your pants" that.

A slingshot maneuver is "done" before you even get to the star, its all about approach. The star is going to do the rest.

You'll need a nice computer and navigator to pull it off.

Doing something like that is not an example of fine control. Its gross gestures from the main drive, applied over hours and days.

You would do this like Picard would do it. "Engage!"
Pilot error was still the largest cause for plane accidents.
Many Pilot errors (we're talking modern sophisticated airliners here, not Cessnas) are pilots fighting the computers, which may or may not be getting bad data. Or even pilots unwittingly fighting each other.

I don't know if modern drone missions, the bigs ones crewed by guys in Las Vegas) are manually landed or not today. As I understand it, the drone takes off under local control, is then handed off to the folks in Vegas, and then when it returns, it's returned to local control. But I don't know if the local controllers simply hit the "land" button and watch over it, or if they have their hands on the stick doing the work.

I'm betting its autonomous, but I'm not sure. Curious what their failure rate is.

We're still not comfortable letting the computers land aircraft in general I don't think. They're capable, we're just not 110% confident in it happening properly enough to risk several hundred souls, or several M$ of cargo.
 
@aramis I'm glad Hunter kept that in the background.

@warwizard If something like that became a problem, Pilot skill with a higher DC (Difficulty Check)... unless the GM & Players are interested in the details for pitch, roll, and yaw.
 
Back
Top