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How ubiquitous are grav vehicles

From reading this board and playing Traveller, I get the feeling a lot of people are technophobic. I really like the high tech worlds, grav all over the place and all sorts of other stuff.
 
So what happens when a grav nodule recieves criticals damage?

It fails to function?
It occalates the altitude which may result in a crash?
Or does it cause a TDX Explosion?

For a person to design an explosive based on grav tech, (to me at least) meant that he was thinking: "what happen when a grav nodule fails?" I know!!! It explodes along lines of gravitation force!"

The air/raft, g-carriers are designed for scout and military services and not for private use unless you have the money to buy one. If grav tech is so safe, they would have priced it within the range of every player bugdet, but they didn't. There seems to be a hidden meaning in this, which maybe unintentional on the part of the game designers.

In my universe, I justify the lack of Grav vehicles because of the possiblity it could slice and dice inoccent civilians if it was damaged. However, I did make the acception that higher tech levels had a fail safe device which would not allow that sort of explosion from happening...
 
IMTU, the grav module stops working if it gets damaged. TDX is an explosive, tuned to a grav element, like ambutol sandwiched between grav plates, I can't see what exactly would explode with the module? Generally it is the powerplant that catastrophically fails, even with nitro-methane you get a big pop and a lot of flame, but not a hard explosion like real explosive. The ubiquitous fusion powerplant would be a more likely culprit for secondary explosions, or the hydrogen tankage.
 
Dragoner:

By the nature of Traveller, you can't be a technophobia to play it. The issue here (and we've all done it) is developing the technology so those playing with you understand how it works.

We all have different standards relating to Tech Levels.

Keeping it within the context of this thread:

Grav Tech is discovered around the same time HyperDrives (FTL) are: Reason Inertial Dampers are required to maintain the gravity inside the ship at these speeds.

All equipment starts out large before it can be made smaller, so grav vehicles don't appeared until later in my universe.

Mirco fussion reactors are not common place in my universe (Big boom if they fail, not good for populations or the planet) Power cell or energy cells power vehicles, decreasing range of craft (no orbital transfer between starship and planet using G-craft.)

There is a big difference between grav related devices.

Grav Plates can't be turned into grav vehicles, they are meant to maintain gravity on a ship or allow cargo movement within a ship.
Grav Engines are what is used to power air/rafts, g-carrier, spacecraft and even starship.

You can ask everyone on this forum and they will have a different veiw of grav-tech and how they work it for those using it in there game. I have always compared it to a hot air ballon or a ballist tank on submarine. Yet when it comes to flight, grav engines can make right angle with ease. (Flying saucers would be the nature shape for such craft.)

I try to base everything about technology in my understanding of the science and tech out there now. And how people might see uses for that tech in the future based on current trends around the globe.
 
Dragoner:

By the nature of Traveller, you can't be a technophobia to play it. The issue here (and we've all done it) is developing the technology so those playing with you understand how it works.

My apologies if you felt singled out by my post, that wasn't my point.


Rigel Stardin said:
I try to base everything about technology in my understanding of the science and tech out there now.

Fundamentally I disagree here, the High Tech future is beyond our modern comprehension, some of it will seem as "magic". I often have a hard enough time explaining principles of engineering or other mechanics of how things work right now. Even given the Long Night hiatus, Traveller is thousands of years in the future.

OTU, grav and fusion power plants are mundane, which I can see, once gravity is understood and cold fusion a reality.
 
Dragoner:

I didn't feel singled out. I was just giving my opinion to you.

Second: If you haven't played a role playing game and arguement hasn't broken out of rules or some peice of equipment, you're a very lucky person. This is one reason why I've always tried to keep my future tech based in modern tech. People who play understand modern tech so if you advance it into the future there is less likelyhood of arguments which ruins the game.

Early 80 when CT came out, home computers and cell phones were about to hit the market. None of us back then would have realized that 30 years laters, the internet, cell phones with almost the same power as the computer would be such a big thing. What the next 30 years will bring.

Traveller is timeless in that sense...
 
Computers and cell phones are a good example, people know how to use them, but generally have no idea how they actually work. Cars are another example exactly the same, people have no idea how they work, they just use them and that is today, imagine explaining it to say an ancient Roman. Sure they could probably use them, but it would seem like magic to them.

Yeah, when I bought CT back in '81, computers had green screens and you loaded them with magnetic tape; mobile phones I think sent analog radio frequencies to a switch. :rofl:
 
With the Vilani being conservative long term builders, in additon to the lack of moving parts, I would suggest that Grav vehicels are likely to last much longer than todays cars.

Meaning the second hand grav vehicles market is likley to be a large and lively one.

Regards,

Ewan
 
See, Fusion reactors losing containment probably ignite flammables in the compartment (including aluminum), but a boom is extremely unlikely. The hydrogen for it is likely to be a fireball, not a boom. (It's only explosive in certain mixture rates with oxygen. Wrong pressure on a hydrogen burner, too low or too high, and it blows itself out.)

Gravitic tech IMTU is several related technologies:
Gravitics Tree (Branch # and sub branch letter)
1A Gravitic suspension systems
1B Thruster plates
2A1 Artificial Gravity
2A2 Gravitic forging
2A3 Gravitic Focusing
2B Inertial Compensation
3 Gravitic polarization of chemical reactions
4A1 Gravimetric sensors
4A2 Densitometers
4B Neutrino sensors.

The locomotion system includes TL seconds of power capacitance. So long as the locomotion is above inop, you've 15s of max flare. There's a chance so long as it's above destroyed... Grav Veh roll to emergency flare, at a penalty for in the inop. (difficult if not inop, formidable if inop but not destroyed; impossible if destroyed but not past double. High tech worlds usually have designated roadways for urban grav vehicles, often with 30m AGL flight ceilings unless craft have redundant flotation capable power plants.
 
T20 let me build a 700vl grav car with a top speed of ~145kph, carry 4 people with 111.87vl left over, have a 24 hour duration and cost only cr42,127 after the 20%. cr52,659 as a custom chassis.

It has head and tailights, and it is pressurized and climate controlled, and has no radio system or radar. With a 15% down payment and divided out 5 years, cr621.03 a month before interest...

I likee....
 
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T20 let me build a 700vl grav car with a top speed of ~145kph, carry 4 people with 111.87vl left over, have a 24 hour duration and cost only cr42,127 after the 20%. cr52,659 as a custom chassis.

It has head and tailights, and it is pressurized and climate controlled, and has no radio system or radar. With a 15% down payment and divided out 5 years, cr621.03 a month before interest...

I likee....

just done one in MTG with a apparant cost of 16,600cr. 8 cubic meter volume (whatever that is in other systems. 13.5 M3 to the Dton).

I cheated a bit, in that it uses a lifter/prop combo rather than true grav, but it works, tops out at 518KPH (or 50kph. It's not clear), can travel for 48 hours at 388kph on a single tank fo fuel, takes 4 people and 120KG of cargo (or 5 people with 22KG cargo, if you want to), short range radio and laser comms, and a basic sensor system.

I've rushed this out, so i need to check the figures, but the maths looks solid. watch this space for a (very untidy) spreadsheet with the vehicles details on it.
 
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Just a hair bigger than mine....and cheaper....hrmmmm. I don likee no more....:(

i cheated and used grav for lift only (costs like a 1/5h as much as pure grav). also, i think it can only go about 50KPH using the lifters (at least, the lifters have a top speed of 50kph). it may only be able to achive high speeds if i turn the lifters off and rely on wings and lift. so, i think my design is actually more like a fancy VTOL prop plane than a flying Ford Focus.:D:D


linkage to the rather untidy spreadsheet i worked everything out in
 
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