Stutterwarp Maneuvers

[rgrove0172]

Feedback on the following appreciated.

1. A stutterwarp vessel is in system, cruising from one planet to another. (assume no leftover delta V) If it changes course it;
a) adjusts its attitude jets while warping, making incredibly small shifts during each millisecond between jumps, and thus moves at a very slow arc toward its new course.
b) stops the drive, spends a few seconds or minutes shifting to its new heading, then engaging the stutterwarp, essentially changeing to any course it desires before taking off in the new direction?

An important question to be answered in figuring this out is how long it takes to engage the stutterwarp engines, even while idling. Is it simply a matter of "hitting the switch" and you jet off, or is it a more involved process, requiring not only some astrogation but mechanical preparation as well, perhaps minutes to hours required before you can hit that switch.

2. A stutterwarp vessel is approach the .1G wall at their destination planet after a long in system cruise. Does it;
a) slow as it approaches so as to make radar sweeps of the space ahead (again during the tiny incriments between jumps) and maneuver according to "orbital control" instructions before finally coming out of stutterwarp in a prescribed safe location.
b) Pop out of stutterwarp at a good distance - make all necessary scans and communications before reengaging the drive, then manuevering to the appropriate location and orbital path.

Again the question as to how intricate embarking on a stutterwarp leg is from a stand still.

Both questions rely heavily on a perception (not one provided it seems anywhere in the canon) of stutterwarp operations. Is it s gas pedal and clutch operation? One that astrogation makes safer and a bit more effecient but isnt really required. Or is it a fairly involved process of gathering information, plotting a course (as mid flight changes are next to impossible or risky as hell) then "powering up" the drive and eventually hitting the go switch?

 

[McPerth]

My take is that, as you don't need acceleration, stutterwarp may be just turned on and you begin tunneling at chosen pseudo-speed (up to máximum, of course).

1) About tuning, my guess is that both oprions are open, just depending on how close you want to turn. You can turn on any angle by using option b, or just turn slowly using option a.

2) My take here is option 2 as the usual one, being less risky.

 

[rgrove0172]

Ok, so I gather you are from the "kick it in gear Ensign, get us out of here!" camp as opposed to the "Plot us a course and have Jones start his preflight. Id like to have us underway by 1400" approach.

 

[McPerth]

Yes, that's my take. The fact that you need not to gain momentum and that the vectors needed are already known makes me think that is going from 0 to máximum speed quite quickly (once you have left orbit) and not many pre-"flight" preparation is needed

 

[epicenter00]

1- c) Stutterwarp acts as a maneuver drive while it's turned on. It isn't stuck just going in straight lines. Turning on conventional maneuver jets would change your real delta-v but your Stutterwarp "pseudovelocity" is different from that. The Stutterwarp would be compensate for it normally. So you can appear to travel in a straight line through space using Stutterwarp, but be using your maneuver jets to match the delta-v of your destination while going there, within the constraints of fuel and thrust of your maneuver jets.

2- c) I've always had the impression the increasing or decreasing efficiency of Stutterwarp in various gravity gradients are gradual when you're actually flying around in-system. If you're drawing a diagram where a planet fits on a piece of 8x11" paper, yes the 0.1G barrier is a solid black line and efficiency changes abruptly on either side of that line. But if you're actually flying around, that "line" on the piece of paper is tens of kilometers wide. Even before you hit the 0.1G barrier, your Stutterwarp efficiency has been steadily dropping in steadily increasing increments. Even at like 0.095G your Stutterwarp is only arguably better than a conventional maneuver drive. At .15G your Stutterwarp is less efficient than a conventional maneuver drive, but not really by much. Well before then you've dropped so far below lightspeed that you can talk to ground control, use RADAR and so on as if you were a conventional vessel.

Since I've always figured that Stutterwarp ships use local gravity wells to change / match vectors whenever possible (this is why you don't see that much attention paid to conventional maneuver drives), you probably spend more time matching vectors with your destination a goodly distance from your actual destination. During this time you talk with ground/space control. Once you're close enough, you stutter over close to your destination, turn off your stutterwarp and use conventional thrusters for whatever residual maneuvers you need to dock. For safety reasons, you probably don't dock using Stutterwarp.

 

[rgrove0172]

I suppose the real difference between the stutterwarp ships in orbit as opposed to the conventional drives is the lack of inertia. Although not all that faster than typical travel speeds, they can stop and change direction on a dime if the "hit the go button" approach is accepted. Your poor thruster ships are having to contend with delta V limitations and... well physics. This would be a pretty major advantage in a close range orbital dog fight.

 

[shaunhilburn]

Feedback on the following appreciated.

1. A stutterwarp vessel is in system, cruising from one planet to another. (assume no leftover delta V) If it changes course it;
a) adjusts its attitude jets while warping, making incredibly small shifts during each millisecond between jumps, and thus moves at a very slow arc toward its new course.
b) stops the drive, spends a few seconds or minutes shifting to its new heading, then engaging the stutterwarp, essentially changeing to any course it desires before taking off in the new direction?

Some insight can be read from "Star Cruiser" page 8:

"The activity of the drive itself at high cyclic rates produces a gyroscopic effect that is referred to as pseudomomentum. It is not true momentum in the Newtonian sense, but limits the magnitude of immediate changes in direction and velocity."

So there. A pseudogyroscopic effect precludes quick changes in direction. This is why Star Cruiser requires the expenditure of movement points to change a vessel's facing. You can try to work around it by disengaging the stutterwarp, yaw or pitch around to a new heading with RCS, and the re-engage, but ...

... this consumes time (30 - 50 seconds), and since you've wasted some portion of the turn at "All Stop", you won't be able to use your full movement allowance before the end of the Movement Phase.

Method A or B can be used to change direction, but either one has the same movement point cost.

An important question to be answered in figuring this out is how long it takes to engage the stutterwarp engines, even while idling. Is it simply a matter of "hitting the switch" and you jet off, or is it a more involved process, requiring not only some astrogation but mechanical preparation as well, perhaps minutes to hours required before you can hit that switch.
.
.
.

Is it s gas pedal and clutch operation? One that astrogation makes safer and a bit more effecient but isnt really required. Or is it a fairly involved process of gathering information, plotting a course (as mid flight changes are next to impossible or risky as hell) then "powering up" the drive and eventually hitting the go switch?

I have no idea. I've always thought of stutterwarp as something that can be immediately engaged or disengaged like a light bulb. Star Cruiser, however, mentions pseudo-momentum, pseudo-velcity, and pseudo-gyroscopics that hint at the device's sluggishness.

I don't see why navigation would be a concern, unless you're flying through a something like a comet tail or ring system. Normally, the chances of colliding with something are pretty remote.

Astrogation should be automatic. Any pumping/cranking/slingshot maneuver/transfer orbit/crazy delta-v budget you can come up with is trivial in comparison the the sort of computing power of ship's computers (imagine a Cray XK7 cluster). A drive computer has to perform a colossal amount of data processing for each cycle of the stutterwarp drive WRT position/vector/momentum. A targeting computer must plot a firing solution for a stuttering object as small as five meters at a distance of two light-seconds. For this level of tech, astrogation is child's play and shouldn't be cause for the slightest delay.

 

[rgrove0172]

Thanks for the input.

I try to decide such technical issues in my own games with a decided bias toward drama. What makes for a better story?

Personally the idea that the ship's captain can just point and whoosh, kind of takes some real interesting drama out of the game.

I rather like the idea of a captain arriving from a shuttle and telling his crew they need to bug out before the authorities catch up. The navigator starts flipping through data screens like crazy while the comm-officer begins the tedious process of gaining clearance to leave orbit. Meanwhile the guys in engineering are frantically trying to bring the drive up to operable cycle quickly by shortcutting some of the safety checks and pushing the process wherever possible. "30 minutes sir, maybe just a bit under". Meanwhile the captain's contact below informs him that two menacing looking agents just left the office in a blurr, one of them screaming into a comm-link on his arm.

 

[McPerth]

THe fact that the stutterwarp may be turned on and of like a light bulb does not mean some seccurity tests should be done, and obtaining leaving clearance may be more an administrative matter for the commo officer.

So your situation may still be true, though, as I understand you describe it, probably the ship is landed and must use the thrusters before engaging the stutterwarp, and thrusters are newtonian engines...

 

[rgrove0172]

I actually assumed they were in orbit for purposes of the example.

 

[whartung]

I rather like the idea of a captain arriving from a shuttle and telling his crew they need to bug out before the authorities catch up. The navigator starts flipping through data screens like crazy while the comm-officer begins the tedious process of gaining clearance to leave orbit. Meanwhile the guys in engineering are frantically trying to bring the drive up to operable cycle quickly by shortcutting some of the safety checks and pushing the process wherever possible. "30 minutes sir, maybe just a bit under". Meanwhile the captain's contact below informs him that two menacing looking agents just left the office in a blurr, one of them screaming into a comm-link on his arm.

I can't say whether there's a warm up time for a SW drive or not, but once warm, it should be an on off switch.

The navigator only needs to plot something for the long term, pretty sure any one able to point the ship "up" can get a ship out of orbit with no planning whatsoever. Planning is only important if you care about where you're going. "Getting away" is a different problem, and since space is so big, there are likely more options to get out than not.

If you're in a modern day scenario, with minimal fuel, and fractional G drives, then, yea, it takes much more planning, as it's far to easy to "blast off" in to space and be on a one way trip to nowhere. But for SW drives, etc. that's not an issue. They're simply not the slave to newtownian mechanics that we are. The gravity well is a speed bump, not an insurmountable problem. In the end it can be point and shoot, turn and burn, and be on your way like an unnamed rogue freighter out of Mos Eisley.

 

[McPerth]

I actually assumed they were in orbit for purposes of the example.

Whoops. I guess this part:

Meanwhile the captain's contact below informs him that two menacing looking agents just left the office in a blurr, one of them screaming into a comm-link on his arm.

made me think they were landed...

In any case, the need to attain clearance might still be the hardest part in a highly travelled system, as I guess traffic control is as thight as air controlers today, as accidents, no matter how rare, are catastrophic.

 

[BMonnery]

The drive "speed" has momentum and so takes time to change. The stutterwarp itself is completely linear, to turn you physically turn the ship somehow. You can slowly turn the ship gyroscopically if so equipped (you spin an internal gyroscope one way and the ship hull will move in the opposite direction) or it may be using chemical rockets (which I think is stated to be the general case).