CT Only: Spinward Yacht

[whartung]

Only if they have sufficient thrust. Unless using the overthrust rules from MT, or CG from TTNE or T4, doing so with a 1G is a death sentence on a saturnian or larger GG... cloudtop gravity is around 1.08G.

Jupiter is 2.4G, you'll need 2G.

The atmospheric perigee method allows using ram-air, as well; the cloud tops are about 0.1 Bar, but you're going to need much higher to liquify it into the tanks.

That's all well and good. Numbers are great.

But, "historically", the 200t Free Trader is presented as being ubiquitous. Gas Giant fueling is presented as "common". The FT is a streamlined ship. There are "lots" of planets with more than 1G.

Non-commercial ships usually follow the same schedule of one week in jump and one week in a system. If haste is called for, a ship may refuel at a gas giant immediately, and re-jump right away.

Sounds pretty uneventful to me!

Yet, the FT seems to be a common design despite all of these edge cases.

This simply suggests that the 1G ship is "adequate" for many of the task at hand. There's nothing in the LBB travel chapter about ships being stuck in gravity wells to their doom. There's more about staying out of 100D than anything warning a 1G ship to "stay clear" of large bodies lest they get sucked in. (And, yes I've seen the planetary template rules with their 74m Sun template and huge Jupiter templates.)

We all know the "realities" of gravity, yet, still, these little 1G ships are "everywhere" and, apparently, fairing well in the environment. Somehow, they get by.

Traveller is "hard-ish" SF, but I've always felt that the starship were those that leave the planet with a hum and bright light. Just lift up and fly away, rather than a blast of fire leaving radiated glass and a forest fire in their wake.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

But, "historically", the 200t Free Trader is presented as being ubiquitous. Gas Giant fueling is presented as "common". The FT is a streamlined ship. There are "lots" of planets with more than 1G.
...
There's nothing in the LBB travel chapter about ships being stuck in gravity wells to their doom.

Except the movement system in LBB2, mirroring how ships with constant acceleration would behave.

Try to land without crashing using LBB2. Once down, try to take off again.

You have 1 G acceleration available, say 1.2 G acceleration pulling you down. How do you take off?


The Free Trader is not built for wilderness. Without fuel purifiers, it's built for cruising between class A and B starports. Using unrefined fuel it will soon misjump, presumably losing the ship and crew. Note that shuttle services between orbit and the ground are common at class A-C starports.

The Scout is built for wilderness, and it has purifiers and 2 G. It can go wherever it wants and refuel wherever it wants (within reason).

 

[AnotherDilbert]

T5 has contra-grav lifters installed as the default.

Lifters, yes. Contra-grav, no. There's a difference, even if it's small.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Please misunderstand correctly.

He, I'm trying, but...

There is no standing still in a rotating gravitational system. There are no straight lines. Everything is spinning around everything else.

"Parking" would generally mean a parking orbit, just any stable orbit that will not run into any obstacles anytime soon. The ship would still spin around some gravity source.

 

[Spinward Flow]

That's all well and good. Numbers are great.

But, "historically", the 200t Free Trader is presented as being ubiquitous. Gas Giant fueling is presented as "common". The FT is a streamlined ship. There are "lots" of planets with more than 1G.

Which is where Referees are supposed to come in.
If a world has a surface gravity of higher than 1G and the ship has a maneuver drive limited to 1G ... the Referee (and the Players too, let's be honest) ought to notice that and make other arrangements besides landing the ship on the surface. In most circumstances, you would expect the "crew" of a ship to be aware of this kind of issue and have them plan accordingly. If the ship can't reach orbit from the surface, it should not go to the surface (duh! o ... in which case you (as a crew) want to be visiting the orbital highport facilities instead of the downport on the surface, which would then presumably require the use of shuttle services to move cargo and passengers from the highport to the downport if that's where they need to go. Fortunately, LBB2.81 p9 covers that situation of using a highport to downport shuttle.

Yet, the FT seems to be a common design despite all of these edge cases.

This simply suggests that the 1G ship is "adequate" for many of the task at hand.

There's a difference between "good enough MOST of the time" for the job and being able to do "anything, anywhere, at any time" with no meaningful limits.

There's nothing in the LBB travel chapter about ships being stuck in gravity wells to their doom.

It isn't explicitly labeled as being such, but the way the rules system works for LBB2.81 inevitably yields that result.
LBB2.81 p27-28 covers starship movement.
LBB2.81 p28-29 covers planetary gravity wells.
LBB2.81 p36-37 covers planetary templates, with the chart on p37 explicitly showing you how much gravity effect happens in what radius bands above planetary surfaces. This chart makes explicitly clear that world size 8+ means 1G or higher surface gravity (that would be the Gs column under the word STANDARD).

If you actually use the vector movement Rules As Written (which hardly anyone does, to be fair) then it becomes blindingly obvious pretty darn fast that a 1G maneuver drive ship that "lands" on a size 8+ world simply doesn't have the acceleration power to lift off when you read the chart on LBB2.81 p37 in conjunction with the gravity rules from LBB2.81 p28-29.

There's more about staying out of 100D than anything warning a 1G ship to "stay clear" of large bodies lest they get sucked in. (And, yes I've seen the planetary template rules with their 74m Sun template and huge Jupiter templates.)

We all know the "realities" of gravity, yet, still, these little 1G ships are "everywhere" and, apparently, fairing well in the environment. Somehow, they get by.

Mainly by working around the limitations of their drives, rather than ignoring those limitations for the sake of convenience. :coffeesip:

Remember, a size 8+ mainworld is basically rolling 2D and getting a 10+ result, so it's not exactly a mainstream or common world size. That means that there are relatively "few" mainworlds of size 8+. Ships with a 1G maneuver drive simply need to figure out how to do their business in such places without needing to land the entire ship in a surface downport at such worlds. Likewise, ocean refueling would not be an option for them at such worlds (can't lift off again after landing in the ocean). So in such locations, use of an orbital highport would be necessary. If such highport facilities are not available (type D, E or X starport, for example) around a size 8+ mainworld ... then such a location becomes a "no go" for conducting any business there that involves transfer of passengers and/or cargo off the ship.

Which then becomes the niche role for small craft on trading vessels with only a 1G maneuver drive. If you can load up a 30-50 ton small craft with everything you need to get from orbit down to a surface location and the small craft can pull 2G or more ... you're set. So you don't need to rent shuttle services from a highport to a downport because you bring your own.

Although for some inexplicable reason, the basic 20 ton Launch is designed with 1G maneuver drives (I figure it's mainly an orbital ship that just so happens to be able to land on size 7- worlds), so you have to upgrade to a 30 ton Ship's Boat in order to find more powerful maneuver driven small craft for these kinds of surface to orbit transfers for passengers and cargo when you can't take the entire ship down the gravity well.

So for people who are paying attention ... using a small craft with a powerful maneuver drive to shuttle cargo and passengers makes it possible to use a 1G maneuver drive on a starship and be able to conduct business at almost any world. This means the small craft has a more "reliable" use than as merely a lifeboat in a disaster situation. In fact, depending on the specifics, you can even wind up with a sort of Tug And Rider kind of arrangement for a starship, where the explicitly "starship" part of the ship is simply a jump tug that stays orbital at all times for hauling small craft that do the "real" hauling of cargo and passengers around interplanetary systems, as well as landings and liftoffs.

Also, for merchant ships, remember what LBB2.81 p9 says about Trade Customs.

Goods taken on in orbit are delivered when placed in orbit around the destination. Goods taken on on a planetary surface are delivered when off-loaded on the surface of the destination. This custom applies to cargo, passengers and mail.

So don't take on cargo, passengers and/or mail from the surface of a world bound for the surface of a world your ship cannot deliver to. Kind of goes without saying ... but ... you know ...

Traveller is "hard-ish" SF, but I've always felt that the starship were those that leave the planet with a hum and bright light. Just lift up and fly away, rather than a blast of fire leaving radiated glass and a forest fire in their wake.

The classic (1977 even!) example of this is the Millennium Falcon "blasting its way" out of Mos Eisley.

There is no standing still in a rotating gravitational system. There are no straight lines. Everything is spinning around everything else.

"Parking" would generally mean a parking orbit, just any stable orbit that will not run into any obstacles anytime soon. The ship would still spin around some gravity source.

:xh:

Descend low enough into the atmosphere ... SLOW DOWN ... and hover in place. For lack of a better term ... you AIR PARK.

You're still thinking in the wrong frame of reference.
You're thinking orbital, I'm talking about "landing approaches" for places where there is no "land" to be had (just cloud layers). Your ship "hovers" in place, inside the atmosphere, so as to "park" next to clouds of gas (go with the flow of the wind speeds) as they move through the atmosphere ... at which point you open the fuel scoops and begin filling the tanks for processing.

In other words, the ship does a "hover and dip" maneuver that has nothing to do with remaining orbital at all during the refueling ... kind of like how water ocean refueling works, which would be a similar "hover and dip" kind of operation. You "park" the ship in the water, open the fuel scoops and start taking fuel on board for processing. The difference at a gas giant would be that there is no solid or liquid surface to "land" on, but you can still do a "hover and dip" with the fuel scoops, provided you have enough reserve acceleration capacity in your maneuver drive to both hover and reach orbit once you're done refueling.

Or are you trying to say that streamlined ships maintain orbital velocities to scoop ocean water too? :coffeegulp:

So to reiterate what you yourself said previously ... try to misunderstand correctly.

At this point in the conversation, there are two basic ways to achieve the same ends ... what we are (now) calling the orbital skimming maneuver and the hover and dip maneuver. Please stop confusing one for the other when clarity of explanation has already been provided more than once.

There is more than one way to refuel from a gas giant.
WHICH ways are available for you as options to use is determined by the power of your maneuver drive.
Lower acceleration means fewer options (go figure, eh? ).
You keep advocating the position that having more options doesn't matter enough to be a meaningful enough value return on investment. I disagree, and have laid out my reasons for why.

 

[mike wightman]

A 1g ship operating in an atmosphere has to be streamlined.

A streamlined ship generates lift, so flying in an atmosphere with a ridiculously powerful 1g continuous thrust engine is not a problem.

You take off and fly like a plane, not a rocket, judging by the corpus of canon. You accelerate to higher speeds as the atmosphere thins, it may take a while to reach orbital velocity but you will do so - it's pretty simple physics if you don't get bogged down in the erroneous application of the broken vector movement system of LBB2.

 

[Spinward Flow]

A 1g ship operating in an atmosphere has to be streamlined.

A streamlined ship generates lift, so flying in an atmosphere with a ridiculously powerful 1g continuous thrust engine is not a problem.

Where I come from, 1-1=0 ... no matter how you slice it.

Also, streamlining (configuration 1, 2 and 6) does not ipso facto explicitly mean an "airframe" capable of aerodynamic lift in flight. It just means "can enter atmosphere codes 2+" and not be destroyed upon (re-)entry into the atmosphere from orbit. The two are not necessarily synonymous (and the starship design rules tend to not be all that specific on this point, since they're mostly concerned with SPACE rather than flying around in atmospheres for some reason ).

Plus there's that whole Vertical Take Off and Landing (VTOL) side of things, which is what I'm ultimately getting at, versus Short Take Off and Landing (STOL) all the way out to Conventional Take Off and Landing (CTOL) involving multi-kilometer long runways and the like, which is where you're going with this.

As a Referee it's your job to rule on what kinds of facilities are available to receive starships on worlds with a surface gravity of 1g or higher. Yes, you can rule that at THIS starport, there are CTOL facilities of a runway type capable of handling a starship with a 1G maneuver drive for takeoffs and landings ... but almost nowhere else is (meaning you've got only ONE place to land and take off from). Note that this means that attempting a CTOL landing in the ocean could be done for a refueling run, but taking off again could be problematic to the point of being hazardous to attempt (especially with any wave action involved!) if you can't achieve VTOL performance. Basically, a 1G maneuver drive would be incapable of VTOL on a world size of 8+ ... and if you can't Vertical Take Off (VTO) on maneuver drive power, that limits where you can take off again from (you can always "land" on a planet, perhaps harder than your engineering crew is comfortable with, but it's getting "unstuck" and reaching for the sky again after landing that's the trick).

So at an absolute bare minimum, you're going to need a type E starport (for runway space) on a size 8+ world when working with a 1G maneuver drive and landing on the world ... but you can't go anywhere else on that world, land and take off again other than the starport. If the Referee wants to say there are other facilities that can amount to at least a type E starport (or a type H spaceport) elsewhere on the world besides the "main" starport, they can make that ruling in that instance ... but it still remains the case that unless your ship has enough maneuvering power to achieve VTOL performance, your choice of landing locations you can take off again from is going to be limited.

Now if you're playing a merchant campaign where there ISN'T ANYWHERE ELSE TO GO aside from the starport on the mainworld (because nothing else matters) then you're perfectly fine with conducting business in the necessarily more limited way you're describing and won't notice what you're missing in terms of performance capability (because you wouldn't be using it anyway). Players who want to "adventure" and go a bit further afield might chafe at the limitations (for insert reasons here), but the merchant who isn't into that stuff won't notice the loss of capability in that direction (most of the time). Besides, if you have to leave your starship at the starport, you can always use a vehicle of some kind to go on adventures beyond the confines of the starport, right? Does your starship carry its own vehicle for these kinds of excursions, or will you need to rent one at the starport to go on your adventures?

You take off and fly like a plane, not a rocket, judging by the corpus of canon. You accelerate to higher speeds as the atmosphere thins, it may take a while to reach orbital velocity but you will do so

You're assuming an atmosphere code of 4+ for a size 8+ world, enabling aerodynamic flight. The dice roll for atmosphere in world generation is 2D-7+world size. So a world size of 8 can have an atmosphere 3 (very thin) on a die roll of 2 on 2D (so possible, just not very likely). A world size of A can have an atmosphere of 5 (thin) on the same roll of 2 on 2D, so although the potential for aerodynamic lift has gone up from having a thicker atmosphere to work with, the gravity goes up as well, so you're right back to the same problem of being able to reach minimum stall speed with the "airframe" of your Configuration 1, 2 or 6 starship (assuming your Referee rules that your starship configuration "counts" as an airframe in the first place).

According to LBB6, the planet Mars has an atmosphere code of 3 (very thin, which in reality is 0.6% Terra standard pressure, so VERY THIN!). Still think you can rely on atmospheric lift from a streamlined configuration to compensate for your inability to achieve VTOL (or even CTO, conventional takeoff) performance from your 1G maneuver drive?
Your Referee might give you an eloquently skeptical look that could prompt you to reconsider your options ...

it's pretty simple physics if you don't get bogged down in the erroneous application of the broken vector movement system of LBB2.

Most takeoffs and landings are a breeze when you IGNORE GRAVITY like you're proposing here. Just because gravity is "inconvenient" for you to deal with doesn't mean you should hand wave it away as a nuisance that doesn't need to be bothered with. o:

Or to put it another way, that's quite the plot hole of a house rule you've got going for you there ... :rofl:



My point here is that if you want to be able to land your ship "anywhere" on a planet, without restrictions on where that might be (away from the starport, in the ocean, etc.) you're going to need a 2G maneuver drive in order to be able to safely(!) land and take off again from any world size from Planetoid (asteroid belt) all the way up through Small Gas Giant (SGG). The 1G maneuver drive is "good enough for most places" so long as you understand that there will be limits on where you can go on worlds of size 8+ and that the methods of skimming fuel from fuel from gas giants is going to be limited to orbital maneuvers only. If you're willing to live with (and work around) those limitations on where you can go and what you can do with a 1G maneuver drive ... then that's on you (for being a cheapskate who is more interested in cargo and passenger space than on freedom to maneuver and navigation). If all you want is a ship that does Point A to B runs, then a 1G maneuver drive will usually be sufficient to your needs (especially if you plan to stay orbital as much as possible and only land the ship when you have to). But if you want to increase your options of where you can go (and how you get there and leave again, safely) ... you're going to need a 2G maneuver drive at the minimum for a "go anywhere" ship.

As with so much else in actual engineering, it's all about compromises and trade-offs. To get more capability, you need to pay more for it (in this case, MCr and tonnage to achieve higher drive performance at the expense of cargo and passenger capacity). Whether that trade-off is "worth it" in a ship design is highly dependent upon the ship's purpose (go anywhere vs A to B hauler) and where the ship is likely to be going (because context matters for this).

Most "adventurous" Players will not care for the kinds of limitations that a 1G maneuver drive will place on their wandering travels, while some will relish the "challenge" of figuring out ways around those limitations (adversity breeds character, and all that jazz).

 

[AnotherDilbert]

A 1g ship operating in an atmosphere has to be streamlined.

A streamlined ship generates lift, so flying in an atmosphere with a ridiculously powerful 1g continuous thrust engine is not a problem.

No?

It is only explicitly defined in T5 and perhaps Gurps, as far as I can remember. Streamlined is not enough, you also need wings or equivalent lift.

In CT Streamlined is needed to enter an atmosphere at all. Some ships obviously also had wings e.g. Serpent, Subbie.

A. Movement: The movement rate of a spaceship is determined in the same way as that for a grav vehicle; the ship's maneuver drive rating is used as its G value. A ship with a G rating equal to or less than the planetary gravity may not take part in combat actions except from orbit.

MT added Airframe that allowed fast speeds in atmo, but still didn't say anything explicitly about wings or lift. SSOM instead introduced overloading the M-drive and showed ships balancing on their M-drive, like a rocket.

 

[mike wightman]

Where I come from, 1-1=0 ... no matter how you slice it.

Planes fly just fine where I come from...

Also, streamlining (configuration 1, 2 and 6) does not ipso facto explicitly mean an "airframe" capable of aerodynamic lift in flight.

If streamlining allows you to fly around in an atmosphere then you generate lift regardless of being 'airframe' configuration

Plus there's that whole Vertical Take Off and Landing (VTOL) side of things, which is what I'm ultimately getting at, versus Short Take Off and Landing (STOL) all the way out to Conventional Take Off and Landing (CTOL) involving multi-kilometer long runways and the like, which is where you're going with this.

Where does it state that starships take off vtol?
The illustrations of starports I have seen show extensive runways as well as landing pads.

According to LBB6, the planet Mars has an atmosphere code of 3 (very thin, which in reality is 0.6% Terra standard pressure, so VERY THIN!). Still think you can rely on atmospheric lift from a streamlined configuration to compensate for your inability to achieve VTOL (or even CTO, conventional takeoff) performance from your 1G maneuver drive?

With a 1g continuous thrust engine - yes, easily.

Most takeoffs and landings are a breeze when you IGNORE GRAVITY like you're proposing here.

I AM NOT IGNORING GRAVITY - stop implying I have ever suggested such a thing - I just appear to have a much greater understanding of how things fly than you do.

Just because gravity is "inconvenient" for you to deal with doesn't mean you should hand wave it away as a nuisance that doesn't need to be bothered with. o:

Where have I suggested ignoring gravity?

Or to put it another way, that's quite the plot hole of a house rule you've got going for you there ... :rofl:

Since when is basic physics a house rule plot hole?

 

[whartung]

As a Referee it's your job to rule on what kinds of facilities are available to receive starships on worlds with a surface gravity of 1g or higher.

Here's the thing. Simply, the book doesn't make a big deal of ships taking off and landing on planets. They don't mention AT ALL that this is a "problem", that it's something to be wary of, that you should watch out for this on your little tramp freighter.

Fuel at a Gas Giant "instantly" or dip water or fuel up at the star port.

Sure, they mention things like shuttles and rental rates. You'd think that would be a good time to mention that orbital docking is necessary sometimes because the ship can't land. Just a sentence, a quick wave like they do for everything else. But they're more noted as used by non-streamlined ships, not ships without enough power.

But they don't.

Your post has almost as many words as 3 pages of the LBBs, going on base assumptions that referees know anything about gravity, physics, aerodynamics, lifting bodies vs streamlining, etc. etc. That's a lot of "check out the big brain on Brad" power for a lone, random referee.

Even in the Starship Operations Manual, you'd think that if the whole "planets too big, ships too small" thing was a "big deal" and not "dealt with", they'd mention something about that. Maybe how you can perhaps overpower the M-drive for short periods to get some more boost out of hard situations. Or something, ANYTHING, like that.

But they don't even mention it. They have a nice chart talking about surface to orbit, how far it is based on planet type and how much longer it takes you in denser atmosphere in order to not heat the hull.

But anything about "Hey you on the big planet with the 1G drive? You're humped. Sorry!"

Nope.

I mean, heres a book "all about starship operations", don't you think that would be an appropriate place to mention this minor detail that can utterly strand your 50MCr ship if it doesn't happen to just lawn dart in to the surface when you tried to land in the first place anyway?

It has all sorts of paragraphs about lateral thrust and gyroscopes and ionization effects.

But gravity wells? Trapping your ship? The same ship that's everywhere in the galaxy, so "everyone" has this problem. That ship?

Nothing.

I don't even remember anything being mentioned in any JTAS articles, an excellent medium expand upon issues like this.

Oh, the manual also talks about gas giant skimming. A 1 hour hazardous task (so it takes several hours). Potential mishaps include: "turbulence, radiation exposure, debris collision, and heat damage." Notice what's not on the list? Pirouetting in to the gas giant core to either burn up or be crushed.

So, maybe it's a solved problem. That it's no big deal. That when you show up at the Starport cafe and mention "Boy you're sure going to have a problem getting that ship off this planet" and the pilot just looks at you quizzically and says "What the heck are you talking about?"

it's like drop tanks. We have all these things weird limitations about drop tanks. How commercial ships should, but don't use them, how they could be substituted for fuel shuttles, but aren't etc. etc. Why do we know this? Because there's nothing in the "Fossil record" that says is did. Military ships used them, they're one use and done. That's all we know. Jump consumes stupid amounts of fuel. That's all we know.

Free Traders apparently don't have issues with big planets. That's all we know.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Here's the thing. Simply, the book doesn't make a big deal of ships taking off and landing on planets. They don't mention AT ALL that this is a "problem", that it's something to be wary of, that you should watch out for this on your little tramp freighter.

How much hand-holding do you need?

The LBB2 spacecraft system explains in detail how spacecraft move and how gravity fits in. This is a very simplified model of newtonian physics. Obviously if a ship doesn't have enough acceleration available it can get stuck in a gravity well.

LBB1-3 are generally concise, not very verbose. They don't explain in detail what happens if you accelerate straight into a star, do you really think that is no problem?

Generally: Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Fuel at a Gas Giant "instantly" or dip water or fuel up at the star port.

Believe it or not, CT rules specify how long it takes to refuel by skimming. Just because you haven't bothered to looks it up, doesn't mean it's "instant".

The rules don't specify how long it takes to land, yet I don't think that means ships teleport from orbit to the ground instantly.

Sure, they mention things like shuttles and rental rates. You'd think that would be a good time to mention that orbital docking is necessary sometimes because the ship can't land. Just a sentence, a quick wave like they do for everything else. But they're more noted as used by non-streamlined ships, not ships without enough power.

But they don't.

So there is no reason whatsoever to use shuttle service, since there is no specific reason mentioned here?

TRADE CUSTOMS
Goods taken on in orbit are delivered when placed in orbit around the destination. Goods taken on on a planetary surface are delivered when off-loaded on the surface of the destination. This custom applies to cargo, passengers, and mail.
At any location with a class A, B, or C starport, shuttles routinely operate between orbit and world surface. Typical shuttle price is Cr10 per ton and Cr20 to Cr120 per passenger.

Note that this rule actually say that cargo can be specified as delivered in orbit. The trade rules does not specify in orbit or on the ground.

 

[Spinward Flow]

Planes fly just fine where I come from...

Not to put a fine point on it, but you (the person posting this) come from ONE planet with ONE type of atmosphere (Terran) ... not from any number of different world types with wildly different atmospheres, each of which can be visited.

In other words, your sample size for this issue in an interstellar context might be too small.

Or to put it another way ... helicopters that fly on Mars require different engineering than the ones that fly on Terra (as the Ingenuity helicopter on Mars has conclusively proven recently). Yes the principles and the physics are the same (lift, weight, thrust, drag), but the details of the operation in the two environments (Terra vs Mars) are QUITE significantly different. As an added reading assignment, you can look up the meaning of different Rayleigh Numbers and their implications for aerodynamic flight potentials in different atmospheres. In a Traveller universe context, going from a Very Thin atmosphere to a Dense atmosphere has all kinds of implications for what "works" as an airframe on different worlds.

If streamlining allows you to fly around in an atmosphere then you generate lift regardless of being 'airframe' configuration

Okay, let's take you at your word then.

All Starships with configuration codes of 1, 2 or 6 need to be hypersonic vehicles in order to transition from orbital speeds to "terrestrial" speed regimes without destroying themselves.

Striker B4, p14 defines a Hypersonic airframe vehicles as having a minimum stall speed of either 350 kph (conventional takeoff) or 175 kph (short takeoff). If your starship lacks enough maneuver power to takeoff vertically (which requires maneuver G > planetary gravity G) then you absolutely will need a ground run before takeoff to achieve the necessary airspeed for aerodynamic lift to break contact with the surface.

Amusingly enough, Striker B3 at no point mentions anything about needing to make adjustments or corrections to minimum or maximum speeds of airframes based on the atmosphere rating of a planet. So using the Rules As Written (RAW) strictly as written, a Striker designed aircraft can operate just fine between 350 kph (stall speed) and 4500 kph (maximum speed) on a vacuum world with no atmosphere, simply because the RAW are completely silent on the effects of different atmosphere types/pressures on aircraft in Striker B3, p24-28.

Of course, as Referees and Players, we ought to know that aircraft (and therefore, airframes) require atmosphere to produce lift, and that most (most) airframes for aircraft are specialized for a single world's atmospheric conditions, rather than working identically in every atmosphere (from none to insidious) with exactly the same performance profile every time. Because, I mean ... we ought to know that, because the alternative is rather ... SILLY ...

Where does it state that starships take off vtol?
The illustrations of starports I have seen show extensive runways as well as landing pads.

Landing pads require VTOL performance ... in order to not be damaged upon landing (as in ALL ships can "land" on a landing pad, some more violently than others, but in order to lift off from one you require VTOL).

As I've already exhaustively detailed, repeatedly ... if the only place you care about going to is the starport, you aren't necessarily limited to VTOL only operations if you can also takeoff and land in a CTOL manner (which requires supporting facilities, aka the starport). But if you want to take your starship somewhere away from the starport ... you're going to have a problem on takeoff if you can't VTOL and and don't have an available runway length for an aerodynamic assisted takeoff. In other words, there are limitations (and I shouldn't have to keep explaining this at this point) when it comes to "wilderness landings" and it should go without saying that ocean refueling will DEFINITELY count as a "wilderness landing" as far as that goes.

I AM NOT IGNORING GRAVITY - stop implying I have ever suggested such a thing - I just appear to have a much greater understanding of how things fly than you do.
Where have I suggested ignoring gravity?

/em Darth Vader breathing noises

"All too easy ..."

it's pretty simple physics if you don't get bogged down in the erroneous application of the broken vector movement system of LBB2.

I even cited chapter and verse for you from LBB2 and laid out what happens when you read and use the rules about gravity as well as understand the implications when that knowledge is properly applied. You're the one who is saying "gravity doesn't count because AIRFRAME!" ... mega:

And for the record, the vector movement system isn't "broken" ... it works just fine. The only problem with it is that it's usually too cumbersome to actually make use of in practice during a gaming session, so most Players and Referees skip right past it (to get on with the good stuff).

 

[mike wightman]

Lol, so now you are claiming the laws of physics only apply on or around Earth :rofl:

and you can't see how the vector movement system is broken? Oh dear...

and as to:

You're the one who is saying "gravity doesn't count because AIRFRAME!

I am only applying the STREAMLINING option.

 

[Spinward Flow]

Your post has almost as many words as 3 pages of the LBBs, going on base assumptions that referees know anything about gravity, physics, aerodynamics, lifting bodies vs streamlining, etc. etc. That's a lot of "check out the big brain on Brad" power for a lone, random referee.

That's because I'm explaining myself. It's different when you write a rule in a rulebook (here it is, deal with it) and when you are basically negotiating in a conversation (which is what I consider this forum to be) for an agreement of understanding. Also, I wanted to provide the "big brain" perspective on things as a stepping stone to a broadening of the usual understanding(s) and assumptions that people have about these things (starship designs). The whole "this drive, not that one" can sometimes require rationalizations and explanation of the thinking and reasoning behind design decision compromises ... and if you don't explain yourself adequately, people can be prone to jumping to the WRONG conclusions with confidence (just look at how this thread has played out so far for multiple examples of this).

So yes, I'm being verbose ... but I'm doing so for a reason of trying to get people to examine their long held default beliefs about a number of topics (such as the "1G maneuver drive is all you'll ever need" notion).

Even in the Starship Operations Manual, you'd think that if the whole "planets too big, ships too small" thing was a "big deal" and not "dealt with", they'd mention something about that. Maybe how you can perhaps overpower the M-drive for short periods to get some more boost out of hard situations. Or something, ANYTHING, like that.

But they don't even mention it. They have a nice chart talking about surface to orbit, how far it is based on planet type and how much longer it takes you in denser atmosphere in order to not heat the hull.

But anything about "Hey you on the big planet with the 1G drive? You're humped. Sorry!"

Nope.

I mean, heres a book "all about starship operations", don't you think that would be an appropriate place to mention this minor detail that can utterly strand your 50MCr ship if it doesn't happen to just lawn dart in to the surface when you tried to land in the first place anyway?

It has all sorts of paragraphs about lateral thrust and gyroscopes and ionization effects.

But gravity wells? Trapping your ship? The same ship that's everywhere in the galaxy, so "everyone" has this problem. That ship?

Nothing.

Probably because the writers (back in 1977) figured that anyone who could handle vector movement would implicitly understand the complication of maneuvering in a gravity well (and how to get "unstuck" from a surface once you've ... "landed" ... safely or not). And as far as that goes, they were probably right about that assumption, because once you DO understand that's how it works, the whole thing becomes really really obvious.

The problem is ... hardly anyone ever wants to deal with the vector movement system for starships. As I said above, it's just flat out cumbersome to actually DO in a tabletop setting. It's fine if you're wargaming on huge tables (or a gymnasium floor) where you have plenty of room to spread out on, but aside from that the whole vector ship movement system is usually more trouble than it's worth ... so people skip it and just hand wave the particulars. The hazard of doing that is skipping over "too much" of the system (such as the effects of gravity on the acceleration of starships like we're seeing in this thread here), but the nuggets of information and rules ARE all there in LBB2 ... it's just a chore to assemble them all into the necessary conclusions that result from knowing How Stuff Works™.

Or to quote a mildly famous (former) admiral ... "You have to learn WHY things work on a starship." (Youtube link citation)

I don't even remember anything being mentioned in any JTAS articles, an excellent medium expand upon issues like this.

Oh, the manual also talks about gas giant skimming. A 1 hour hazardous task (so it takes several hours). Potential mishaps include: "turbulence, radiation exposure, debris collision, and heat damage." Notice what's not on the list? Pirouetting in to the gas giant core to either burn up or be crushed.

So, maybe it's a solved problem. That it's no big deal. That when you show up at the Starport cafe and mention "Boy you're sure going to have a problem getting that ship off this planet" and the pilot just looks at you quizzically and says "What the heck are you talking about?"

Probably because it never really impinged all that much on anyone's game playing experiences, so it was easier to discount and ignore.
I'm making a fuss about it here, because ... reasons ...

it's like drop tanks. We have all these things weird limitations about drop tanks. How commercial ships should, but don't use them, how they could be substituted for fuel shuttles, but aren't etc. etc. Why do we know this? Because there's nothing in the "Fossil record" that says is did. Military ships used them, they're one use and done. That's all we know. Jump consumes stupid amounts of fuel. That's all we know.

The whole drop tanks thing has the feeling of a later development that got retrofitted onto the basic rules. But I agree with you that there are some really curious omissions to the rules surrounding drop tanks in CT when you try to scratch beyond the surface.

Free Traders apparently don't have issues with big planets. That's all we know.

And I'm saying that's an overly broad interpretation. I'm saying that they DO have issues with high gravity worlds, but that there are workarounds for dealing with those issues (usually). Meaning, it's not like they can't conduct business as usual at size 8+ worlds AT ALL ... but they may need to make "other arrangements" than simply landing their ship to offload cargo and passengers on the surface of those worlds. Those "other arrangements" will then eat into their profit margin for visiting size 8+ worlds, since the Free Trader probably (probably...) shouldn't be landed dirtside, but it's not like there aren't any other options (at type A, B or C starports).

But this is a detail of starship operations accounting that a lot of people tend to skip over or hand wave their way past, although just because such details are often times neglected by Referees and Players doesn't mean these details somehow fail to exist or have meaning (if you want them to). The "value" of these details can be (quite easily) reduced to zero if you pay no attention to them (or the little man behind the curtain) ... but if you do pay attention to them then the "terrain" of a campaign can become more varied and complex, which often results in a more challenging and rewarding game play experience for both Referees AND Players when they are included as "obstacles" for the Players to overcome and deal with as complications, rather than as insurmountable barriers. After all, with a little advance planning, not being able to land a 1G maneuver ship on a world where you want (or need) to can become simply the opening act of an adventure if you want to play it that way. If you can't use the hammer, try the screwdriver (or words to that effect).

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Descend low enough into the atmosphere ... SLOW DOWN ... and hover in place. For lack of a better term ... you AIR PARK.

You're still thinking in the wrong frame of reference.

I understand what you mean, I'm just baffled why you would want to.

Hovering is not "parking". I suspect any helicopter pilot can tell us that hovering in place in atmo is not trivial.


So, decelerate to "stop" and hover, pump in gas, and then accelerate up to speed so you can leave the gravity well. Each step would waste time and it would be less safe since if either the PP or the M-drive had a hickup you would be in trouble. At 3 G you would fall about 50 km in a minute and get into real trouble in less than two minutes.

With an orbital pass you would just continue in the orbit, if a bit slower, if a drive failed. You would still leave the atmo automatically and then have hours or days to repair it.

 

[Spinward Flow]

Lol, so now you are claiming the laws of physics only apply on or around Earth :rofl:

To quote AnotherDilbert ... please misunderstand correctly.

Just because aircraft "work here" in a specific way does not ipso facto mean those exact same aircraft will "work everywhere" just fine, no problem, wthout any modifications whatsoever. It is an overly broad interpretation to assume that just because streamlining can function as an airframe in one context it must therefore work equally well in all contexts regardless of the atmospheric properties of other worlds ... which I would point out can vary quite widely (and have, repeatedly, already).

Just because it can work in a single case does not therefore mean it works equally well in all cases.

At worst, I'm saying that your experience you cite has a single frame of reference of a single world in a single star system ... rather than a wide range of highly variable conditions spread across hundreds of worlds in hundreds of star systems spread across a sector of space.

If you want to make the argument that there's no difference at all whatsoever between the atmospheric and gravity environments on Yres/Regina/Spinward Marches and Terra/Sol/Solamani Rim ... to pick two points of easy comparison ... we can have that argument.

You'll lose that argument ... but we can discuss the matter until realization begins to break through the underlying assumptions that you're making about context here being the exact same everywhere.

 

[Spinward Flow]

I understand what you mean, I'm just baffled why you would want to.

Context and motivations matter for these kinds of operational details. Best answer to the why question I can give is that it depends on the situation and circumstances.

Hovering is not "parking". I suspect any helicopter pilot can tell us that hovering in place in atmo is not trivial.

A difference of colloquial semantics then. The important thing is that you get the idea.

So, decelerate to "stop" and hover, pump in gas, and then accelerate up to speed so you can leave the gravity well. Each step would waste time and it would be less safe since if either the PP or the M-drive had a hickup you would be in trouble. At 3 G you would fall about 50 km in a minute and get into real trouble in less than two minutes.

With an orbital pass you would just continue in the orbit, if a bit slower, if a drive failed. You would still leave the atmo automatically and then have hours or days to repair it.

Correct on both counts. However, some context is missing in both cases.

You're presuming a drive failure condition mishap as a possibility (which technically speaking is possible at any time!), and yes hovering in a gas giant's atmosphere would be a "bad time" for such a mishap to occur ... but the same is true for an orbital descent onto a terrestrial world too. The "risk" of a drive failure mishap isn't somehow magically heightened compared to a terrestrial world landing through atmosphere (and here I'm talking like +DM on dice rolls at a gas giant vs terrestrial world). So as far as that goes, needing to sustain powered flight in a gravity well is a Bad Time™ for a drive failure mishap no matter where you are in a gravity well if you're not on a trajectory that keeps you orbital (as you rightly point out).

So keep your drives well maintained kids!
Important safety tip, thanks Egon.

As for the relative safety of the orbital pass to skim for fuel at high speed in the upper atmosphere ... there is again a question of context (which the CT LBB rules aren't going to answer for us all that nicely, as far as I'm aware). The orbital passes could potentially take 20+ hours per orbit to complete, and if you need to make multiple orbital passes through the atmosphere to fill your fuel tanks (ie. the "fill rate" flow from skimming) that can easily take longer than the hover and dip maneuver which might ultimately take less time. However, if you only need a single orbital skimming run to fill your tanks to full, then the orbital skimming will often times be the superior option.

The risks are different (type, severity, cause, etc.) in the event of a mishap, but that's what happens when you use different methods to achieve the same results. Depending on the skill of your crew, different options have different risk/reward ratios in different contexts. One of the complications for that risk/reward analysis could easily be the sorts of orbital trajectory adjustments you will want to/need to make upon departure from the gas giant. If you're skimming just before jumping, the exit trajectory doesn't matter so much, as long as you can reach 100 diameters distance ... but if you're skimming fuel after jumping into the system and then need to maneuver to somewhere else in-system, based on orbital trajectory plots and options dependent on your maneuver drive, sometimes the hover and dip can be faster to complete if the orbital route puts you "out of position" for where you want to go next.

In other words ... context and details of circumstances matter. Needless to say, this is where the Referee comes into the picture as the "arbiter of reality" within the game.