George William Herbert writes:
>I've been working on a fix for justifying the volume-based maneuver drives...
>It goes something like this:
> Maneuver drives (not grav thrusters) don't actually produce thrust
>or force. What they do is distort the local gravity field...not just play
>with it like lower tech grav, but actually forms a gravitational gradient
>(volume of warped grav. volume is porportional to the maneuver drive
>volume...) around/within the ship. The 'thruster plates' garbage can be
>explained away thru pseudogobbldeygook 8-) . The Inertial Compensators
>take this field (which should be uneven, stronger closer to the drives...)
>and even it out so that everything in the ship doesn't fall towards the
>front 8-) .
>
>Comments? Suggestions? Let's hear 'em, i'd prefer not to have to junk the
>current rules, even if they need revision (yay metlay).
Sounds like a reasonable explanation. However, the problem isn't
how the drive works, but what it does. Reactionless drive (by any means)
equals violation of conservation of energy. There is no way around it - I
tried to find one, and was finally able to prove that it was impossible.
I used to have a lot of trouble with traveller's rather cavalier
attitude towards physics, but I think an important distinction can be made.
Some of the physics violations are intentional, such as Jump drive,
reactionless
thrusters, etc. These I am happy to accept as little black Physics
Nullifier (tm)
boxes attached to the relevant machinery, and are part of what makes the game
fun. However, a lot of the problems seem to be unintentional, such as the fact
that you can get free energy out of a system consisting of TL15 fuel cells and
a fuel purification plant. Those I want to fix - it will help make the
game more
consistent.
Since some of the intentional violations will let you build perpetual
motion machines, etc, my favorite explanation for why they don't work is
a "nullifier interference field" generated by all those little black
boxes...:-)
Have fun,
W. Dow Rieder
When the only tool you have is a hammer, all your problems
start to look like nails...