Faster than 6G

[atpollard]

Any thoughts on the Small Craft rules that upped the anty on going zoom?

I did the same thing IMTU as soon as I got CT: High Guard and figured the progression on the MD. I saw no practical reason why acceleration should stop increasing after a certain TL - just extend the chart and let space be the limiting factor.

Since MgT uses a LBB2 style table of drive vs performance, Acceleration vs TL got swept under the table like it was in LBB2. Any personal thoughts on Inertia Compensation and TL and greater than 6G?

Any thoughts on whether it should apply to starships as well as small craft?

THIS IS ALL ABOUT OPINIONS AND 'INTERESTING THINGS TO TALK ABOUT', SO PLEASE TRY TO REMAIN CIVIL.

 

[Klaus]

I like it a lot. Also gives fighters more usefulness if they can outrun/catch up with the capital ships.

The higher tech modifications to the volume of drives gives something of a TL effect on the drive tables

 

[ThunderChilde]

Heh, yeah I've given more than a little bit of thought.
Pro-6g cap. Handwavey, there is an upper limit in maximum sustainable compensation in a large field area, this also intersects with Imperial Star ship structure and hull engineering requirements, Higher accel will require more expensive engineering and manufactuering costs. Small craft can achieve a greater compensation field density due to the smaller scale of the field. The closer to 100 tons the get, the lower the field density, by and large.

Sky is the limit. A stronger engineering standard and safety requirements, not to meantion the over sized power plants make this a costly, yet achievable Engineering challenge. Aside from specialized military craft, racing teams, and perhaps express delivery "white glove" type operations it has small niche applications.

 

[Klaus]

racing teams

Something else fun to play with...

 

[Madarin Dude]

Some things that you might think of. If the pilot is in a gravity seat where he is in an ideal position to compensate for the G's you can add some g's on top that he can handle while on a large ship trying to do maintenance on a engine etc while pulling any sort fo g's is impossible.

So pilot might pull 3 g's during 9g's acceleration be well within normal limits a person can handle in a proper pilot seat but a large ship can't because the decks might not be on the right plane people not seated in a proper seat etc.

 

[flykiller]

I always just said that maneuver drives and jump drives were related, and that any maneuver greater than 6g resulted in an uncontrolled jump.

So pilot might pull 3 g's during 9g's acceleration be well within normal limits a person can handle in a proper pilot seat but a large ship can't because the decks might not be on the right plane people not seated in a proper seat etc.

sounds good, but such a rule would tip the balance of naval combat very heavily towards sdb's, not to mention riders. a factor T meson gun couldn't hit a hull factor K rider at all.

traveller's rules are fairly constrained, and any change anywhere can have enormous repercussions elsewhere in the system.

 

[Supplement Four]

Science never having been my strong suit, I've always wondered what would happen if you built a prototype vessel, with a GIGANTIC fuel supply (which wouldn't be that hard if we're only fueling the powerplant and the M-Drive), and removed the 6G accel limit.

What would happen?

Or, even without removing the 6G limit, the ship would keep accelerating, changing its velocity by 6G every 1000 seconds.

Where's the point of diminishing returns? What keeps this vessel from approaching light speed?

Crew it with master-file robots. Don't worry about food or O2. Shove it off in a straight line across the Greater Rift, length wise.

At what point does the ship no longer acclerate at 6G's?

 

[sabredog]

Only problem is that the ship will gain mass as it approaches the speed of light. As the mass increases the drives would have to compensate, and more fuel would be used...which means the drop off of drive efficiency would mean that according to Einstein you can't approach, let alone reach, the speed of light with a closed system like you describe.

Hence all the effort that sci fi authors go to in order to come up with an alternative drive to bypass the physical limits. Some new ideas in quantum theory and gravity might help with that area but otherwise much handwaving will be needed in Traveller.

 

[aramis]

If I remember correctly, tau is a square root of speed in C, and if we measure to the nearest cm/s/s... and use the simplified traveller 10m/s/s G... we need 0.0005 m/s/s difference. so we need a second of approx 0.9995 sec.

γ = 1/(1-v²/C²)^0.5

so we need

γ = 1/(1-x²/3e8²)^0.5)
1.0005 = 1/(1-x²/9e16)^0.5
inverting both sides
0.9995002498750625
= (1-x²/9e16)^0.5
square them both...
0.9990007495003124 = 1-x²/9e16
0.9990007495003124 + x²/9e16= 1
x²/9e16= 1- 0.9990007495003124
x²/9e16 =0.0009992504996876317
x²=89932544971886.7
Squareroot both sides
x = 9483277.12195983

X is in m/s... so about 9500 km/s or about 11 G-days of thrust to lose about half a cm/sec/sec if I did the math right.

 

[ThunderChilde]

Hey! You put Hard Science in my Space Opera!:rofl:

 

[Supplement Four]

Only problem is that the ship will gain mass as it approaches the speed of light. As the mass increases the drives would have to compensate, and more fuel would be used...which means the drop off of drive efficiency would mean that according to Einstein you can't approach, let alone reach, the speed of light with a closed system like you describe.

I may not be good at Science, but this much I know just from playing Traveller!

It's amazing what we learn from rpgs. I saw and understood my first bell curve looking through the old AD&D Dungeon Master's guide. Traveller task systems have taught me much about probability. Being raised in the US, it was Traveller that got me familiar with the metric system.

Plus, all sorts of other stuff, like understanding just how far it really is between planets, density, gravitation, et. al.

All of this at a fairly early age.

Heck, you'd think I would have been better at Science and Math once I reached college, huh? :smirk:

X is in m/s... so about 9500 km/s or about 11 G-days of thrust to lose about half a cm/sec/sec if I did the math right.

Interesting. So...what does this say about the CT Travel Formula...and trips that last longer than 22 days (11 acceleration; 11 deceleration).:devil:

 

[aramis]

they experience a peak tau of a few tenths of a percent at most... but that's enough to explain a failed nav roll...

11 days at 6G is an accumulated 950400 seconds of thrust. at 6G, that's between 57,024,000 m/s and 55,984,372.9 m/s ... only 1.1 km/s max difference, and the actual difference should be off by 1/2 that, giving a rough speed of 56,504,186. m/s Only a couple seconds off... more importantly, it's going to add a few hours of realtime.

Losing double digit seconds per hour...

Max dilation
γ = 1/(1-v²/C²)^0.5
γ = 1/(1-3,251,736,576,000,000/90,000,000,000,000,000
)^0.5
γ = 1/(1-0.0361304064)^0.5
γ = 1/(0.9638695936)^0.5
γ = 1/0.9817686049166575
γ = 1.0185699512003545
0.9817686049166575 x Tref

Averaging 0 dilation and max dilation (using 56,504,186m/s)
γ = 1/(1-v²/C²)^0.5
γ = 1/(1-3192723035522596/9E16)^0.5
γ = 1/(1-0.03547470039469551)^0.5
γ = 1/(0.9645252996053045)^0.5
γ = 1/0.9821024893590814
γ = 1.0182236689498654
0.9821024893590814 x Tref

 

[Supplement Four]

γ = 1/(1-v²/C²)^0.5
γ = 1/(1-3,251,736,576,000,000/90,000,000,000,000,000
)^0.5
γ = 1/(1-0.0361304064)^0.5
γ = 1/(0.9638695936)^0.5
γ = 1/0.9817686049166575
γ = 1.0185699512003545

Oh yeah?

Ya don't say...

Well...

1/023232344328
123!!jknnnkks @7765
00987^2341
{897}2+42.0987345
50%


So...take that.

 

[Icosahedron]

Answering your question in English rather than Mathematics, S4, nothing will stop your megaship from accelerating indefinitely - except running out of fuel - but eventually, as it gets closer to light speed, the acceleration won't be as staightforward as it is at lower speeds - it no longer follows a linear formula. Having said that, any navigator worth his salt will know that and calculate accordingly.

In short, you stop accelerating when you run out of fuel. No surprises there.

 

[aramis]

To actually answer in JUST english: after 11 days perceived thrust at 6G, you've lost several hours, make your flip, and when you come to rest, you discover 22.5 or so days gone by according to the system clock pulses, instead of the 22.0 you experienced.

 

[Jame]

I like it a lot. Also gives fighters more usefulness if they can outrun/catch up with the capital ships.

The higher tech modifications to the volume of drives gives something of a TL effect on the drive tables

I figured the same thing, except for missiles; a missile that can't outrun a target is useless - although I've also always figured that it would have to go over 6g just to avoid being shot down.

 

[Supplement Four]

Answering your question in English rather than Mathematics, S4, nothing will stop your megaship from accelerating indefinitely - except running out of fuel - but eventually, as it gets closer to light speed, the acceleration won't be as staightforward as it is at lower speeds - it no longer follows a linear formula. Having said that, any navigator worth his salt will know that and calculate accordingly.

In short, you stop accelerating when you run out of fuel. No surprises there.

To actually answer in JUST english: after 11 days perceived thrust at 6G, you've lost several hours, make your flip, and when you come to rest, you discover 22.5 or so days gone by according to the system clock pulses, instead of the 22.0 you experienced.

Thanks for the info...but, if it wasn't clear above, I did understand this. My question was answered by Aramis. I understood what would happen, gaining mass at faster acceleration, not accelerating at a full 6Gs, taking longer...before I posted. I was wonder how long that would take.

I actually thought it would take longer than 11 days.





If one looks at the Travel Table in CT, you'll see the longest duration by any of the drives listed is the last one for the 1G drive.

Reason: Any trip longer than 7 days can be done quicker by using the J-Drive.



But, here's an interesting question. What about cost? The M-Drive is vastly less expensive to use than the J-Drive.

If you've got a ship with a 1G M-Drive, and the destination is 3,000,000,000 km away, the travel forumula says you'll get there in 12.68 days.

Is this calculation off because it's over 11 days? Or, was the 11 days mark specifically for 6G vessels.

 

[Madarin Dude]

Well I was not clear in my last post. An easy way to explain it is that maximum compensation for gravity is 6G. Now a fighter pilot can withstand more because he is strapped into a five point harness and in a g suit that will keep the blood from pooling etc. So if the fighter is compensated for 6 G and additional 3 for short bursts would be relatively easy to withstand. Real life fighters take up to 9 g at times frequently 6g. So thus you can get short bursts of up to 9G.

Lager ships where the crew are not strapped in and facing the direction of force woudl nto be able to withstand these kind of maneuvers. I always thought fighters can be launched via a mass driver of sorts to give them a short burst of acceleration away from teh mother ship or base etc.

 

[Klaus]

I figured the same thing, except for missiles; a missile that can't outrun a target is useless - although I've also always figured that it would have to go over 6g just to avoid being shot down.

Missiles could do with more types. As they stand, vs a decently armoured fighter (AT6+), they are about useless.

In B5 missiles ignore the first 3 points of armour, so I'll take that IMTU. Then there'll have to be some short range pursuit missiles that fly away at 20Gs.

Otherwise missile armed fighters are not much use at all, at least against each other.

One thing, though. Why do the dreadnoughts carry all those missile bays, when the chance of doing any damage with them is minimal against military opponents. Are they just for ortillery and blowing up civilian ships?

 

[mbrinkhues]

Some Traveller versions (IIRC TNE/FFS) linked acceleration and minimum armor level. Argument was that there must be some armor to defend against micro-meteroids etc. By that they could use "beyond 6g" without getting "Galactica on Speed" Basically a ship could be fast and lightly armed or well armed and slow

GT allows any speed but restricts compensation by TL. So the rest must be handled by crewstation and/or accelleration tank (Think "Hardwired" or "Forever War") maybe coupled with a neural link