NON Canon thoughts, Ship's Grav in LBB123

[aramis]

IF:
there are several ways to have air/rafts without artificial gravity. The simplest solution is the TNE one: contragrav disconnects a volume from local gravity in whole or in part (TNE uses 98%), but provides no felt gravity of its own, no thrust, and no inertial compensation. (TNE does have artificial gravity available separately, as well as inertial compensation.)

Another way is that of gravitic area impellers. These are not thrusters, and don't stress the hull; they instead accelerate everything in the affected volume equally in the same direction.
Pros: far higher thrusts available. lightweight hulls possible.
Cons: no felt acceleration; can't even do drive-derived "acceleration gravity." Could support 50+G drives with little effect upon passengers.

For an Air/Raft, the impellers could be QUITE fun... you're zipping along in free-fall, at 2-3m above surface!

 

[aramis]

IF:
there are several ways to have air/rafts without artificial gravity. The simplest solution is the TNE one: contragrav disconnects a volume from local gravity in whole or in part (TNE uses 98%), but provides no felt gravity of its own, no thrust, and no inertial compensation. (TNE does have artificial gravity available separately, as well as inertial compensation.)

Another way is that of gravitic area impellers. These are not thrusters, and don't stress the hull; they instead accelerate everything in the affected volume equally in the same direction.
Pros: far higher thrusts available. lightweight hulls possible.
Cons: no felt acceleration; can't even do drive-derived "acceleration gravity." Could support 50+G drives with little effect upon passengers.

For an Air/Raft, the impellers could be QUITE fun... you're zipping along in free-fall, at 2-3m above surface!

 

[mike wightman]

The air/raft and grav belt drive system is specifically named as a "solid state null gravity module" in LBB3. This was shortened to null grav modules from revised edition onwards.

I've always imagined them as making the vehicle buoyant against gravity, with thrust generated by "falling" on a slight incline towards the ground to pick up momentum.

 

[mike wightman]

The air/raft and grav belt drive system is specifically named as a "solid state null gravity module" in LBB3. This was shortened to null grav modules from revised edition onwards.

I've always imagined them as making the vehicle buoyant against gravity, with thrust generated by "falling" on a slight incline towards the ground to pick up momentum.

 

[rhoneycutt]

I always hated the 'common-ness' of null grav in traveller; it argued that there would be no other form of prefered transport.

I figure the energy used by null grav as alt*g's*mass*efficiency<related to tech> and also that this energy must be fed constantly to the drives for them to work. Engine/pp dies....you'll fall hard.

this makes air rafts vary in performance according to load and world's g's. It also makes grav to energy hungry to use in transporting huge loads of iron ore, for example, so railroads and ocean ships would still be used. PARWIGS are cool, too.

I use it for lifting a ship to an altitude where ship'd drives can be lit off without burning things on the ground. < I tend to use reaction drives imtu >, but its not enough to gain orbit without huge powerplants.

For ship's grav, I haven't worked out details except that its expensive to install and expensive to run. Also, when a ship does use grav, it rarely uses higher g settings to conserve power. Most ships use centifuges and the like, or no grav at all.

 

[rhoneycutt]

I always hated the 'common-ness' of null grav in traveller; it argued that there would be no other form of prefered transport.

I figure the energy used by null grav as alt*g's*mass*efficiency<related to tech> and also that this energy must be fed constantly to the drives for them to work. Engine/pp dies....you'll fall hard.

this makes air rafts vary in performance according to load and world's g's. It also makes grav to energy hungry to use in transporting huge loads of iron ore, for example, so railroads and ocean ships would still be used. PARWIGS are cool, too.

I use it for lifting a ship to an altitude where ship'd drives can be lit off without burning things on the ground. < I tend to use reaction drives imtu >, but its not enough to gain orbit without huge powerplants.

For ship's grav, I haven't worked out details except that its expensive to install and expensive to run. Also, when a ship does use grav, it rarely uses higher g settings to conserve power. Most ships use centifuges and the like, or no grav at all.

 

[jawillroy]

Ah, my head's all over the place on this.

I think I can settle myself on having gravitic decks on shipboard. It seems, at least by LBB123 2nd ed, to have been taken for granted. and after all, we're dealing with small, multimillion credit vehicles.

I'm inclined to keep gravitics out of the hold and the engineering areas, as I'm rationalizing the cost of the gravitics as part of the stateroom/bridge expenses.

In terms of grav vehicles generally, I'm not having them be all that ubiquitous. MTU is REALLY heavy with non-industrial worlds, so local tech is going to often be seriously limited. The expense of grav vehicles - six digits and up, as opposed to 5 digits and below for ground vehicles - is going to be a serious hindrance on most of my worlds to common-use CG.

That being said, in a lot of my larger ships, especially military ones, there's going to be a lot of room for rotational grav. IMTU, keeping a military ship drifting with powerplant off for long periods is good tactics; so to preserve battery life, deckplates would be shut down during these periods. Such ships will rely heavily on rotational gravity to keep its crews in comfortable fighting trim.

 

[jawillroy]

Ah, my head's all over the place on this.

I think I can settle myself on having gravitic decks on shipboard. It seems, at least by LBB123 2nd ed, to have been taken for granted. and after all, we're dealing with small, multimillion credit vehicles.

I'm inclined to keep gravitics out of the hold and the engineering areas, as I'm rationalizing the cost of the gravitics as part of the stateroom/bridge expenses.

In terms of grav vehicles generally, I'm not having them be all that ubiquitous. MTU is REALLY heavy with non-industrial worlds, so local tech is going to often be seriously limited. The expense of grav vehicles - six digits and up, as opposed to 5 digits and below for ground vehicles - is going to be a serious hindrance on most of my worlds to common-use CG.

That being said, in a lot of my larger ships, especially military ones, there's going to be a lot of room for rotational grav. IMTU, keeping a military ship drifting with powerplant off for long periods is good tactics; so to preserve battery life, deckplates would be shut down during these periods. Such ships will rely heavily on rotational gravity to keep its crews in comfortable fighting trim.

 

[sid6.7]

looking over LBB1-3 quickly...

well without grav in engineering and cargo
it would totally change traveller....esp
for combat, if you have magboots and vaacsuits
your gonna be so much slower in response
then if it was normal gravity...the vaacsuit
is probably standard but the magboot or
velcroboot would really hamper you...firing a weapon would also change in cargo and eng.
for recoil?

EVERY design i see has terminals, chairs, desks
and normal working spaces VS vaccum/no grav
spaces...i've only seen a couple rotational
ships 1 being one of mine from the old days
1985ish....waste control would be totally different too you just couldnt have the standard
"freshers" that are being drawn we all know and love...you dont see many freshers in cargo/eng
but some do have them...

wouldnt this also change calulations for cargo
volume VS mass and such? planet VS space
masses and volumes?

traveller was created after star trek and such
and we assume grav control in star trek, im
sure mark and the others just overlooked
writing about it as they "assumed" the same
theories applied...

IYTU you can make what you want, but one
assumes in canon traveller AG is just part
of the system..after tech 8 of course...

yeah i'm a died hard "originalist"

fighting a losing battle...BOOYA!

 

[sid6.7]

looking over LBB1-3 quickly...

well without grav in engineering and cargo
it would totally change traveller....esp
for combat, if you have magboots and vaacsuits
your gonna be so much slower in response
then if it was normal gravity...the vaacsuit
is probably standard but the magboot or
velcroboot would really hamper you...firing a weapon would also change in cargo and eng.
for recoil?

EVERY design i see has terminals, chairs, desks
and normal working spaces VS vaccum/no grav
spaces...i've only seen a couple rotational
ships 1 being one of mine from the old days
1985ish....waste control would be totally different too you just couldnt have the standard
"freshers" that are being drawn we all know and love...you dont see many freshers in cargo/eng
but some do have them...

wouldnt this also change calulations for cargo
volume VS mass and such? planet VS space
masses and volumes?

traveller was created after star trek and such
and we assume grav control in star trek, im
sure mark and the others just overlooked
writing about it as they "assumed" the same
theories applied...

IYTU you can make what you want, but one
assumes in canon traveller AG is just part
of the system..after tech 8 of course...

yeah i'm a died hard "originalist"

fighting a losing battle...BOOYA!

 

[far-trader]

I like the military spin (you'll pardon the pun) idea Imperium Festerium. And as for having your head in a spin over all this, think of it as a good thing. It's certainly adding character to my take on things at least

Nothing like a new twist to stir the imagination! OK, enough of the synonynms, I'm getting dizzy

 

[far-trader]

I like the military spin (you'll pardon the pun) idea Imperium Festerium. And as for having your head in a spin over all this, think of it as a good thing. It's certainly adding character to my take on things at least

Nothing like a new twist to stir the imagination! OK, enough of the synonynms, I'm getting dizzy

 

[Golan2072]

Originally posted by Plankowner:
Reading just LBB1-3, I would have (and did) assume that the PP fuel consumption was also what powered the thrust on the M-Drive. I used a Fusion Reaction drive, because nothing in the rules told me anything else and since PP number had to equal Mdrive, that sort of linked the two together, ergo fusion reaction thrust drive.

This will also explain the relatively large fuel consumtion in CT-LBB2 when compared to later versions of Traveller: the "powerplant" fuel includes propellant hydrogen for the m-drive as well!

This will also assume that atmospheric flight uses different kinds of engines (fusion torches are ULTRA-DESTRUCTIVE near planets); it'd probably be weak grav-modules (the Air/Raft is in CT-LBB3, after all) in CT, but I'd prefer jet/rocket combinations (SCRAMJET?) for a more realistic feel and have them subsumed in the streamlining cost.

Anyhow, about shipboard gravities, what about "powered orbits" which preserve shipboard gravity while in "orbit"? if you've ever played the Mission Critical computer game, the starship depicted in that game used its drives to maintain ship-grav as well as engine-readiness (it was a drive of a kind difficult to restart once shut down) while in orbit.

 

[Golan2072]

Originally posted by Plankowner:
Reading just LBB1-3, I would have (and did) assume that the PP fuel consumption was also what powered the thrust on the M-Drive. I used a Fusion Reaction drive, because nothing in the rules told me anything else and since PP number had to equal Mdrive, that sort of linked the two together, ergo fusion reaction thrust drive.

This will also explain the relatively large fuel consumtion in CT-LBB2 when compared to later versions of Traveller: the "powerplant" fuel includes propellant hydrogen for the m-drive as well!

This will also assume that atmospheric flight uses different kinds of engines (fusion torches are ULTRA-DESTRUCTIVE near planets); it'd probably be weak grav-modules (the Air/Raft is in CT-LBB3, after all) in CT, but I'd prefer jet/rocket combinations (SCRAMJET?) for a more realistic feel and have them subsumed in the streamlining cost.

Anyhow, about shipboard gravities, what about "powered orbits" which preserve shipboard gravity while in "orbit"? if you've ever played the Mission Critical computer game, the starship depicted in that game used its drives to maintain ship-grav as well as engine-readiness (it was a drive of a kind difficult to restart once shut down) while in orbit.

 

[jawillroy]

This has probably been hashed out elsewhere, but re; Fusion Torch Drives, just how destructive are we talking about? If we're talking about a matter of acres, well, I have no trouble with starports requiring pretty sizeable clear-zones for launch, and keeping ports well out of settled areas. If we're talking about continental incineration when the next mail ship shows up, well, something else must be devised...

 

[jawillroy]

This has probably been hashed out elsewhere, but re; Fusion Torch Drives, just how destructive are we talking about? If we're talking about a matter of acres, well, I have no trouble with starports requiring pretty sizeable clear-zones for launch, and keeping ports well out of settled areas. If we're talking about continental incineration when the next mail ship shows up, well, something else must be devised...

 

[far-trader]

High Guard (1st edition) allowed maneuver drives (actually called a "fusion maneuver drive") to be used as weapons. They are given a factor equal to the Gs and are effective at short range only. Such use automatically moves the ship to long range from it's target.

Now then, the area affected would probably be related directly to the size of the craft factoring the Gs. A 6G 10ton fighter is not going to flame as big an area as a 6G 10,000ton cruiser. But there's no real guideline for it so you'll have to make it up.

Same thing for ranges. HG just uses a short and long range definition with no actual distance referenced.

 

[far-trader]

High Guard (1st edition) allowed maneuver drives (actually called a "fusion maneuver drive") to be used as weapons. They are given a factor equal to the Gs and are effective at short range only. Such use automatically moves the ship to long range from it's target.

Now then, the area affected would probably be related directly to the size of the craft factoring the Gs. A 6G 10ton fighter is not going to flame as big an area as a 6G 10,000ton cruiser. But there's no real guideline for it so you'll have to make it up.

Same thing for ranges. HG just uses a short and long range definition with no actual distance referenced.

 

[far-trader]

Off the top of my head I'd probably limit fusion torch drive landings to some maximum units. Probably factoring in atmosphere to the equation. Deriving units from Gs times hull size. Any reasonable number will do. Pick what "feels" right and then guesstimate.

For example, supposing a TU where the biggest atmo capable ship is the 400ton Subsidized Merchant, you might imagine it's because more than 400units is too dangerous. So the 400ton 1g type R is just allowed. And so would be the 200ton 2g ships, and 100ton 4g ships, and so on.

Of course you might have higher or lower levels allowed for bigger or smaller (world size) or better or poorer (class) starports. And the maximum units might be different for different atmo types too.

 

[far-trader]

Off the top of my head I'd probably limit fusion torch drive landings to some maximum units. Probably factoring in atmosphere to the equation. Deriving units from Gs times hull size. Any reasonable number will do. Pick what "feels" right and then guesstimate.

For example, supposing a TU where the biggest atmo capable ship is the 400ton Subsidized Merchant, you might imagine it's because more than 400units is too dangerous. So the 400ton 1g type R is just allowed. And so would be the 200ton 2g ships, and 100ton 4g ships, and so on.

Of course you might have higher or lower levels allowed for bigger or smaller (world size) or better or poorer (class) starports. And the maximum units might be different for different atmo types too.