Got a real quicky 'check my math' scenario.
I'm running my long-time player group through TTA. The group is almost entirely new to Traveller conventions, and they finally got off of Aramis last weekend. Anyway, when it was explained to them that the March Harrier doesn't exactly voom off the launch pad at 1g acccel, I was challenged by a player who ought to know better.
His thinking is that modern rockets take "hours" to reach orbit using much more than 1g acceleration. He seemed to think it would take the poor Harrier most of the day to achieve a decent orbit.
Assuming a 1G M-drive gravity powered spacecraft (unaffected by local gravity due to contragrav, etc.) lifting from Earth, my simple physics drop-out calculations show an arrival time to geostationary orbit in almost exactly 45 minutes. Can anyone else back that estimation up?
This also seems to me like a very reasonable performance number for a 1G drive from an in-game perspective.
...
As an aside, this lightly touches on a classic technology debate. For the purposes of this CT-style campaign, I will probably run this game with the assumption above, that starship gravity drives negate the local gravity field up to their drive rating, independantly of the acceleration power. Otherwise, a 1G Manuever ship can only hover in Earth gravity, without special additional acceleration (i.e., SSOM-style 'overdrive' performance, etc.).
Otherwise, my heretical tendencies lean towards a ATU style where many gravity drive ships still carry small reaction drives specifically to help boost out of gravity wells and act as power emergency backups. I like this idea for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the common artistic depictions of classic Traveller small ships with obvious exhaust nozzles.
I should save that for a MTU forum topic, though.
I'm running my long-time player group through TTA. The group is almost entirely new to Traveller conventions, and they finally got off of Aramis last weekend. Anyway, when it was explained to them that the March Harrier doesn't exactly voom off the launch pad at 1g acccel, I was challenged by a player who ought to know better.
His thinking is that modern rockets take "hours" to reach orbit using much more than 1g acceleration. He seemed to think it would take the poor Harrier most of the day to achieve a decent orbit.
Assuming a 1G M-drive gravity powered spacecraft (unaffected by local gravity due to contragrav, etc.) lifting from Earth, my simple physics drop-out calculations show an arrival time to geostationary orbit in almost exactly 45 minutes. Can anyone else back that estimation up?
This also seems to me like a very reasonable performance number for a 1G drive from an in-game perspective.
...
As an aside, this lightly touches on a classic technology debate. For the purposes of this CT-style campaign, I will probably run this game with the assumption above, that starship gravity drives negate the local gravity field up to their drive rating, independantly of the acceleration power. Otherwise, a 1G Manuever ship can only hover in Earth gravity, without special additional acceleration (i.e., SSOM-style 'overdrive' performance, etc.).
Otherwise, my heretical tendencies lean towards a ATU style where many gravity drive ships still carry small reaction drives specifically to help boost out of gravity wells and act as power emergency backups. I like this idea for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the common artistic depictions of classic Traveller small ships with obvious exhaust nozzles.
I should save that for a MTU forum topic, though.
