Weather and landing

[coliver988]

Just some initial rambling on how weather could effect piloting. My thoughts were along the lines where some systems may have designated pilots you need to hire to land due to the extreme conditions, or having weather effect the difficulty for landing (i.e., increase the difficulty from normal or easy to hard).

Just some random things that may not make sense are listed below.

(and may be way below - not sure what I did with that table exactly...here's the link to the spreadsheet if that is easier: Traveller Weather )

0	Vacuum	2-10	Nothing
		11	Meteors
		12	radiation storm
1	Trace	2-10	Nothing
		11	Meteors
		12	winds such as they are
2	Very thin, tainted	2-9	Nothing
		10	high particulate swarms
		11	Meteors
		12	visibility 100 meters
3	Very thin	2-9	Nothing
		10	winds such as they are
		11	Meteors
		12	micro storms difficulty + 1
4	Thin, tainted	2-9	Nothing
		10	high particulate swarms
		11	micro storms
		12	winds such as they are
5	Thin	2-10	Nothing
		11	Meteors
		12	winds such as they are
6	Standard	2-8	Nothing
		9	Heavy rains
		10	Extreme storms
		11	micro storms
		12	High winds
7	Standard, tainted	2	high particulate swarms
		3-9	nothing
		10	high particulate swarms
		11	Heavy rains
		12	high winds
8	Dense	2	high winds
		3-8	Nothing
		9	High winds
		10	Extreme storms
		11	micro storms
		12	heavy rains
9	Dense, tainted	2	high particulate swarms
		3	heavy rains
		4-8	Nothing
		9	visibility 100 meters
		10	visibility 10 meters
		11	Extreme storms
		12	heavy particulate storms
10	Exotic	2	0 visibility
		3	visibility 10 meters
		4	visibility 100 meters
		5	strong winds
		6-8	Nothing
		9	corrosive storms
		10
		11
		12
11	Insidious	2	highly corrosive storms
		3	corrosive storms
		4	high winds
		5
		6
		7
		8
		9
		10
		11
		12

<end>

 

[Enoki]

You could add particularly for very thin or vacuum atmospheres high radiation and extreme temperatures.

Maybe the starport can only be approached at certain times due to these. That is, only at night when the temperature falls to safe levels, or only in a limited vector to avoid the radiation.

On colder worlds ice and hail might be issues. The ship starts icing up severely. Tons are added to its weight and it loses any aerodynamic lift and shape...
Hail the size of baseballs slamming into something moving hundreds of miles an hour is likely not to be a good thing.

On one world I did the insect life was insidious. Open a hatch and some were in the ship. Open it a lot and you had an infestation. They got into everything and anything. Flying through them and it's like bugs on the windshield x 1000.
They weren't really dangerous, just incredibly annoying and pervasive.

 

[flykiller]

in a game you might never notice but I'd put meteors at 12, and the only reason they'd be encountered planetside rather than in space is because they come around the planet and surprise you.

 

[JimCook]

orbiting ammo

From an old science fiction short story set on the moon. High speed projectiles, like rifle bullets, can actually go into orbit around small worlds. If there is no atmosphere they will continue to orbit until they hit something, or someone, and lose enough velocity to hit the ground. An old war or even single battle can leave hundreds of thousands of such projectiles. Locals will know the direction and approximate times they can expect such them to appear.

In the original story the moon was asking for larger and faster computers to help calculate the orbits.

I believe the story was written by Ben Bova, but I have not been able to find the name of the story or where it appeared.

 

[Whipsnade]

I like it! Thanks for sharing.

 

[flykiller]

orbiting ammo

now that's a great idea. have to include that somewhere at some point ....

 

[Nightwind1]

From an old science fiction short story set on the moon. High speed projectiles, like rifle bullets, can actually go into orbit around small worlds. If there is no atmosphere they will continue to orbit until they hit something, or someone, and lose enough velocity to hit the ground. An old war or even single battle can leave hundreds of thousands of such projectiles. Locals will know the direction and approximate times they can expect such them to appear.

In the original story the moon was asking for larger and faster computers to help calculate the orbits.

I believe the story was written by Ben Bova, but I have not been able to find the name of the story or where it appeared.

It is Ben Bova. A short story from 1964 titled "Men of Good Will".

 

[Enoki]

From an old science fiction short story set on the moon. High speed projectiles, like rifle bullets, can actually go into orbit around small worlds. If there is no atmosphere they will continue to orbit until they hit something, or someone, and lose enough velocity to hit the ground. An old war or even single battle can leave hundreds of thousands of such projectiles. Locals will know the direction and approximate times they can expect such them to appear.

In the original story the moon was asking for larger and faster computers to help calculate the orbits.

I believe the story was written by Ben Bova, but I have not been able to find the name of the story or where it appeared.

There's a good anime on a variant of this idea. The junk and such orbiting has become such a problem that corporations and government have organized people and equipment specifically to collect it.

http://anilinkz.tv/series/planetes

 

[BlackBat242]

There's a good anime on a variant of this idea. The junk and such orbiting has become such a problem that corporations and government have organized people and equipment specifically to collect it.

http://anilinkz.tv/series/planetes

Salvage 1?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078681/

 

[kilemall]

There's a good anime on a variant of this idea. The junk and such orbiting has become such a problem that corporations and government have organized people and equipment specifically to collect it.

http://anilinkz.tv/series/planetes

Just picked up a DVD of this, looking forward to it, my anime nose is smelling good series.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DakRYsUIiIE

 

[Enoki]

Just picked up a DVD of this, looking forward to it, my anime nose is smelling good series.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DakRYsUIiIE

It's okay, but it drags in places. The office interactions are like a bad parody of The Office only far less funny.

 

[Reynard]

For me as a referee, weather is Plot Device. It should be an issue for a Pilot Check as a story driver rather than a constant random event. Some worlds could have a recurring weather issue as part of its physicality and that makes it unique and interesting and definitely tasking the players if they must go there more than once. Weather become the ref's tool for either area denial or adding a glitch to spice the adventure.

I had a small world that was cracked in two by a rogue planetoid eons ago and will take eons more for gravity to make whole again. This make for weird weather conditions on a devastated landscape especially the energy storms that raged between the two halves. Great for epic descriptors and obstacles as the players conducted their quest.