Stutterwarp Discharge

[rgrove0172]

I might be missing the obvious here but a stutterwarp drive cant be in operation during discharge, can it? I dont necessarily mean the drive has to be taken offline but it cant be actually functioning other than at "idle", otherwise it would still be accumulating the charge its trying to rid it self off right?

If thats the case then what keeps the ship in orbit? (just within the .1G threshold) Wouldnt an unsupported orbit begin to decay in the 40+ hours it takes to discharge the drive? Does the pilot have to enter into some eliptical orbit, slingshotting past the planetoid the circling around again, in order to maintain position without a functioning drive? Of course if they have another conventional thrust system its not an issue but many, in fact most, stutterwarp vessels dont.

 

[Cryton]

Station keeping, Attitude thrusters and/or non stutterwarp drive keep it in orbit.

These are the same thrusters that keep the whole ship from spinning when the spin grav modules are spun up.

 

[LemnOc]

I might be missing the obvious here but a stutterwarp drive cant be in operation during discharge, can it? I dont necessarily mean the drive has to be taken offline but it cant be actually functioning other than at "idle", otherwise it would still be accumulating the charge its trying to rid it self off right?

If thats the case then what keeps the ship in orbit? (just within the .1G threshold) Wouldnt an unsupported orbit begin to decay in the 40+ hours it takes to discharge the drive?

Considering that conventional satellites shot into space are, in a sense, in decay from the moment they achieve orbit, yet orbit for years and even decades, I don't see 40 hours as a particular concern.

Does the pilot have to enter into some eliptical orbit, slingshotting past the planetoid the circling around again, in order to maintain position without a functioning drive? Of course if they have another conventional thrust system its not an issue but many, in fact most, stutterwarp vessels dont.

I think if you're arriving with a high stellar velocity, or are trying to discharge around a smallish object like a flare star, you would want to discharge your drive in a series of passes through the system—falling and discharging, circling around, falling and discharging.

IM2300U you cannot turn a Jerome drive completely off while it holds a charge. But its pseudo-velocity can be idling at zero while it discharges.

 

[rgrove0172]

Good enough. Thanks guys

 

[mike wightman]

There is just one fly in the ointment.

A stutterwarp ship still has the same orbital velocity as when it switched on its stutter warp.

The further it travels the more its original energy state is going to conflict with the energy state it finds itself in when it switches off the drive.

This, by the way, makes a much more interesting limitation on distance travelled than the silly static build up.

There was a thread about this not too long ago...

 

[mike wightman]

And here is that other thread:
http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=19597
look at page 2.

 

[rgrove0172]

Hmm so if we accept "Castling" then a ship that attempted to ram another ship would, in that last split second, just trade places?

 

[SpaceBadger]

There is just one fly in the ointment.

A stutterwarp ship still has the same orbital velocity as when it switched on its stutter warp.

The further it travels the more its original energy state is going to conflict with the energy state it finds itself in when it switches off the drive.

This, by the way, makes a much more interesting limitation on distance travelled than the silly static build up.

There was a thread about this not too long ago...

Someone suggested that while discharging the stutterwarp static near a gravity well, the ship is also making carefully calculated stutterwarp maneuvers to use the gravity well to cancel out those unwanted velocity vectors. Seemed like a good idea to me.

 

[rgrove0172]

This assumes you can actually discharge while still using stutterwarp. Its isnt clear if the charge builds up during interplanetary/gravity well use but I think its reasonable to assume it does. Perhaps discharge is more effecient than the charge that is being built up in these cases and its not a concern but its worth thinking about.

Personally I choose to believe you cant engage your stutterwarp drive while its discharging at all. Sort of like not being able to bake a cake while your oven is self-clearning!

 

[LemnOc]

Someone suggested that while discharging the stutterwarp static near a gravity well, the ship is also making carefully calculated stutterwarp maneuvers to use the gravity well to cancel out those unwanted velocity vectors. Seemed like a good idea to me.

Stutterwarp being a pseudo-velocity drive, I don't think you could exchange real velocity with the pseudo velocity. But there are conventional means to equalize velocities that can occur in tandem with the discharge. ...And, what mike wightman said

See this excellent link:
http://www.aleph.se/Nada/Game/2300AD/Interstellar velocity Adjustment.pdf

IM2300U, some places (like Barnard's Star) are just horrible to get to. You'd fall through the system 40 hours to discharge but would not try to match velocities. Mostly it's a stepping stone to elsewhere.

 

[LemnOc]

Personally I choose to believe you cant engage your stutterwarp drive while its discharging at all. Sort of like not being able to bake a cake while your oven is self-clearning!

I tend to think that you CAN discharge your drive with the stutterwarp engaged. You simply will not achieve a net discharge, and might end up with a net increase of charge. This would allow in-system drives to operate for long periods without penalty, gaining charge as they're also losing charge. Running at tactical speed might unbalance this.

EDIT: But the other way works, too, and may be easier for bookkeeping.

 

[rgrove0172]

I would hope so, otherwise there went your 7.7 light year maximum.

 

[rgrove0172]

Which brings up a good point though. Does in system warping generate a charge? If a shuttle makes its way from Earth to Mars every week, does it have to discharge at some point? Granted it would take a long time to reach 7.7 light years but principally, would it?

 

[LemnOc]

Which brings up a good point though. Does in system warping generate a charge? If a shuttle makes its way from Earth to Mars every week, does it have to discharge at some point? Granted it would take a long time to reach 7.7 light years but principally, would it?

I think it is generating a charge that is discharging.

Think of it like a car engine that reaches a certain operational heat but doesn't overheat.

You're right that it's going to take a long time shuttling around the solar system to = 7.7 ly. And perhaps there's enough engine downtime to discharge whatever does build up, even if you indeed decide a drive can't discharge unless idle. So, perhaps not an issue either way.

 

[SpaceBadger]

Stutterwarp being a pseudo-velocity drive, I don't think you could exchange real velocity with the pseudo velocity.

Right. Which is why the suggestion was to use the gravity well to cancel out those unwanted velocity vectors. As in maneuver your ship so that the gravity well cancels part of the unwanted vector - then stutterwarp out to do that again - and again - possibly changing your position somewhat with respect to the gravity well each time - until all of the unwanted vectors have been cancelled by gravity acceleration.

 

[SpaceBadger]

Which brings up a good point though. Does in system warping generate a charge? If a shuttle makes its way from Earth to Mars every week, does it have to discharge at some point? Granted it would take a long time to reach 7.7 light years but principally, would it?

The discharge has to be in a .1G or greater gravity well, so I think the transit back and forth outside such gravitic influence would build up charge, which would have to be discharged at either end.

 

[rgrove0172]

Right. Which is why the suggestion was to use the gravity well to cancel out those unwanted velocity vectors. As in maneuver your ship so that the gravity well cancels part of the unwanted vector - then stutterwarp out to do that again - and again - possibly changing your position somewhat with respect to the gravity well each time - until all of the unwanted vectors have been cancelled by gravity acceleration.

I see a Captain or pilot handling it on a case by case basis. Typically you wouldnt have much of an original vector to worry about, unless you were thrusting hard with a reaction drive prior to engaging your stutterwarp, or possibly at high orbital speed. Between a little gravity-well maneuvering and your attitude thrusters I dont see it being a big idea.

"Ensign..pull up our pre-warp inertia vector and compensate when we enter orbit. Lets keep her slow and steady while we rig for discharge"

 

[shaunhilburn]

I might be missing the obvious here but a stutterwarp drive cant be in operation during discharge, can it?

The first edition ref's manual states that:

"Ships operating a stutterwarp within a system are continually discharging, and need never make a special effort to do so."

I take that to mean cruising around in the inner system.

I dont necessarily mean the drive has to be taken offline but it cant be actually functioning other than at "idle", otherwise it would still be accumulating the charge its trying to rid it self off right?

The mechanism has to function at some level (even idle) to purge the contamination. Obviously, it doesn't accumulate charge during the purge.

If thats the case then what keeps the ship in orbit?

First edition:
"In truly high gravity fields (around planets), speeds are reduced to efficiencies less than chemical rockets."

Note here that the device still functions, albeit at a much reduced level, somewhat like a Hall Effect thruster or ion propulsion.


Second edition:

"At 0.1G, the stutterwarp has just enough efficiency to to maintain orbit..."

"... stutterwarp drives are sufficient to make any velocity change necessary to maneuver a ship that is in orbit, as long as the vessel does not drop below the 0.1G distance."

"Stutterwarp vessels can also leave orbit without using conventional drives."

(just within the .1G threshold) Wouldnt an unsupported orbit begin to decay in the 40+ hours it takes to discharge the drive?

No. Stutterwarp can maintain an orbit and also crawl out of it. Also, IMHO, it should take only take 40 hours to purge 7.7 light-years worth of contamination. Shorter voyages should have proportionally shorter purge cycles, say 5.2 hours per LY of travel.

Does the pilot have to enter into some eliptical orbit, slingshotting past the planetoid the circling around again, in order to maintain position without a functioning drive? Of course if they have another conventional thrust system its not an issue but many, in fact most, stutterwarp vessels dont.

Without a functioning drive!? Something really bad must have happened. Without a drive, you can forget about slingshot maneuvers. All the crippled ship can do is coast, subject to the laws of Newton and Kepler.

Is the pilot is worried about catastrophic failure, and the drive "inoperable" because he refrains from using it (reached the travel limit)? If so, he planned poorly, and should be hearing from the Licensing Bureau.

 

[McPerth]

Which brings up a good point though. Does in system warping generate a charge? If a shuttle makes its way from Earth to Mars every week, does it have to discharge at some point? Granted it would take a long time to reach 7.7 light years but principally, would it?

I'd say it will, but this same regular ship to/from Mars would need to make preventive maintenance at some point, and it would surely last more than 40 hours and surely it will have not reached the 7.7 LY limit yet with a distance to Mars of about 0.5-1.5 AU (so we can assume average sitance of 2 AU per round trip), while a ly is over 63000 AU, so it would have to make over 240000 trips to reach the 7.7 LY limit. I guess it would need maintenance before that, and may well use this time to discharge.

So, my take is that they do, but it's inconsequential due to the easiness to discharge and the short (relative) distances involved.

 

[rgrove0172]

Fair enough but Ill have to hold to the fact that during these maintance period, when they discharge any incidental charge on the coils they have accumulated, they arent using the drive to maneuver, arent stuttering sort of speak.