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Max Atmosphere = Huh?

J

jawillroy

SOC-13
Okay, TAS form 3. You know the one. Block 11c, right there next to Streamlining.

Max Atmosphere?*

I've had LBB2 since I were >< this big, and I don't think I've ever really seen an explanation. Max Atmosphere? Is it a High Guard thing that I'm forgetting about?

I'm prepared for the answer to be painfully obvious. Be gentle with me...

*note to self: create NPC lounge lizard EmCee by this name. "Why HELLO there and goodevuninga, ladies and gentlemen and marines HA HA HAaaaa just kidding, I'm Max Atmosphere, and I'll be your host for tonight we've got a LOVEly show for you, with sophonts from hall over the galaxy to enterTAIN you, you can clap now folks HAHAHAHA."
 
Yeah, often wondered myself. I just put it down to one of those things that didn't make it into the rules but hints of it didn't all get edited.

High Guard did introduce another level of streamlining (partial) which may have been from the original rules and may have been the point of the Max Atmo box.

That is what we used it for from then on. Though it wasn't spelled out in HG either. Just that partial can skim GG but still not land in atmo. So we fudged it a bit and Max Atmo was 0 for unstreamlined, 3 for partially streamlined, and 9 for streamlined (and you have to include A+ under the 9 )

I'm trying to recall if there were any official designs published using TAS form 3? I vaguely remember one somewhere but not the specifics.
 
It would make sense if, like HG there was streamlining and there was streamlining. The little ticky-box streamline y or n would indicate skim-ability; but "Max Atmosphere" would make sense in terms of configuration: The dispersed structure with Max Atmosphere - 0 , a dart-shaped vessel being able to slice through atmosphere 9, and so on.
 
Interesting idea. You know if you flipped the hull config numbers from HG it might make a fair Max Atmo correlation.

Code: 
Hull USP   -   Configuration   -   Max Atmo

   1           Needle/Wedge           9
   2           Cone                   8
   3           Cylinder               7
   4           Close Structure        6
   5           Sphere                 5
   6           Flattened Sphere       4
   7           Dispersed Structure    3
   8           Planetoid              2
   9           Buffered Planetoid     1
 
Indeed - does seem to work.

I think that the pricing structure for streamlining/etc is one of the things High Guard definitely did right; makes a stronger argument for going for atmpsphere-unfriendly designs. In LBB2 design, there've been times I'd planned on going unstreamlined and then decided, oh well, why be chintzy over a couple Mcr on the hull when you can streamline the thing and not be reliant on shuttles.
 
I believe I've seen Max Atmos. mentioned in a design sequence someplace. Maybe Striker? Is it for vehicles (airplanes and grav vehicles)?
 
far-trader said:
Interesting idea. You know if you flipped the hull config numbers from HG it might make a fair Max Atmo correlation.

Code: 
Hull USP   -   Configuration   -   Max Atmo

   1           Needle/Wedge           9
   2           Cone                   8
   3           Cylinder               7
   4           Close Structure        6
   5           Sphere                 5
   6           Flattened Sphere       4
   7           Dispersed Structure    3
   8           Planetoid              2
   9           Buffered Planetoid     1
Click to expand...
Ummmmm, you might want to stop that table before it gets to the last two. I don't think I want to see a planetoid even try atmo=2! :eek:o:
 
Well.... "land" isn't exactly the right term. Anything that produces it's own gravity (in the Newtonian or Einsteinian sense) isn't going to "land"........ :rolleyes:
 
may have to factor gravity in there as well. although there is a correlation between atmosphere and gravity, you can (!!holy war warning!!) have some odd combinations.

I always had some upper limit to dTons for gravity wells since the larger a ship is, oddy, the more fragile it may be when ineracting with gravity. Unless you want to bring up the Star Trek structural integrity fields (SID - there's no way those 600+ meter long vessels could turn that fast without tearing themselves apart!) handwaviums. Even a buffered planetoid may squash itself under gravity (I get the visual image of a beached whale for some reason - they suffocate if out of the water long enough)

just a thought to complicate the table more (and what's Traveller without tables?)
 
In a gravitic society, size doesn't matter. You can null the gravity over a large ship just as easily as over a small ship.

Regarding Max Atmosphere, I always read that as atmospheric density.

Similar to the table presented before, but I used:

Streamlined: Any Atmosphere
Partial Streamlined: Very Thin (ATM 3 Max)
Unstreamlined: Vacuum only
 
after 20 years I think the only thing I can recall is that anything over 1000dT could not land in a gravity well. I ran a small ship universe and it never directly impacted the players (although we had many discussions on it!)

If I were to do it now, I'd probably set up a table per hull type, with sizes on one side & gravity on the other, and perhaps use that inverted table for atmosphere checks (meaning you would need 2, yes 2! tables to determine if a ship could land). I'd have to dig out my books (not hard - they are right beside my desk: another advantage of working at home) and look them over.

It still makes for interesting conversation as per this thread. There is lot's of wriggle room depending on how your universe works, structural integrity (oh heck - you would probably use hull armor to increase how deep a gravity well a ship can go in!) and other factors I've not thought of.

Edit: and some factors would be non-linear. adding additional hull armor after a certain point may in fact decrease the gravity available to land in - it's simply too heavy! Or at least the effect tapers off.
 
Last edited:
Since I've been going straight LBB2 for ship design IMTU, there's some good justification for assuming big ships would have a hard time handling grav wells, if only because so the big 3-5k-tonners are so darn slow, and all of 'em are so fragile.
 
Plankowner said:
In a gravitic society, size doesn't matter. You can null the gravity over a large ship just as easily as over a small ship.

...
Click to expand...

I think it may depend on HOW the gravitic society works: does the ship gravity system operate even when on-planet? so you can have 2x the gravity inside? turn it off? reverse the field to keep the ship in shape? or is there a giant gravity plate you land on that effectively reduces local gravity at the port (and this would probably be A and maybe B ports only). Does your gravity system work within another gravity system, and if so, is it accumulative, or cause odd things to happen?

Lot's of wriggle room depending on how you use gravity in YTU. In mine, a ship shuts down most things when landing so the engineers can work at whatever it is they do. Not always, of course, but in normal circumstances.
 
I remember back when I first got the game, I assumed that there was no artificial gravity apart from what could be achieved by rotation or acceleration. It wasn't until I started seeing official deck plans that I realized the standard was otherwise. I'm good with that, now - I figure by the time you get to tech 9 or 10 the grav plates would be pretty ubiquitous, and that they'd operate even inside a planet's gravity well.
 
coliver988 said:
I think it may depend on HOW the gravitic society works: does the ship gravity system operate even when on-planet? so you can have 2x the gravity inside? turn it off? reverse the field to keep the ship in shape? or is there a giant gravity plate you land on that effectively reduces local gravity at the port (and this would probably be A and maybe B ports only). Does your gravity system work within another gravity system, and if so, is it accumulative, or cause odd things to happen?
Click to expand...

I would think that the gravitic systems would cycle down in response to the presence of real gravity - it senses the increase in a natural gravity field and compensates with its own units to maintain the desired gravity setting in the ship (like a thermostat turns on and off the ventilation in order to regulate air temperature).... Of course, thats how I see it (and use it).
 
Going with pure LBB2, if you don't suppose some other limitation to exist, there's not that much of a reason to have anything less than a k-ton go unstreamlined. Who's going to leave their ship to the mercies of the downport shuttle for a measly few Mcr? And yet so many of the standard ships are unstreamlined.

I suspect the main reason for this is to make certain that ship's boats are needed in game play, and that the ex-navvy with a knight's patent and Ships' boat 1 has something to do. But that's neither here nor there.

Now, It has occurred to me that workhorse ships (S, A, R, and T) among book 2 standard designs are all streamlined, where luxury craft or other craft where long-term residence might be called for (M, Y and C) are unstreamlined.

You could have fun with a TU where anti-grav, though ubiquitous in some applications (propulsion and lift for vehicles, mainly) might not be so applicable for internal grav plates (save at the higher levels, maybe tech 13+?) Liners, Yachts and other long-duration vessels would all have need of rotational gravity, and thus would need to be unstreamlined. Ships that could make planetfall would have to have acceleration couches oriented one direction for flight in the gravity well, and another direction for spaceflight and jump. Fast ships would REALLY need couches for maneuvers.

It would change the flavor of the game a lot, I think. It sure wouldn't be OTU. But it might be good.
 
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