> Hmm,
> Richard asks: What does a grav field "Look" like?
>
> Well, I assume you are using a densiometer to "look" at it. Or some
> other means to measure gravitic potential. (How else would you "see"
> it?)
>
> Well, the model I have looked at grav plates as though they are some kind
> of resonant effect within the hull of the ship. Thus, you have grav plates
> on the 'floor' and 'ceiling' of your ship, which makes the entire hull
> into some sort of resonant cavity where the plates interact with each other
> in creating your grav field. I would GUESS that *however* anti-grav works,
> this would be the most efficient way to place the plates. (Sort of a
> gravitic laser cavity without a beam?) You see this way you don't have to
> waste energy creating a field outside and 'above' the hull, as the grav
> effect is confined to inside it.
That abou matches what I wrote, and I like it. Presumably grav drives
for air/rafts and the like use an unconfined grav field, and are
therefore less efficient and have a "fringe" effect due to the drive.
I will further more stick my neck out and conjecture that "thruster
plates" for reactionless drives in spacecraft use a tuned cavity to
create a coherent "beam". The propulsion is more efficient, and doesn't
need an external grav field to "push against"; it "pushes" against
itself.
>
> What does it "LOOK" like?
> Well, inside the ship, Traveller literature seems to indicate that there is
> no difference between the effect of grav plates and standing on a planet's
> surface. So, to my mind someone with a densiometer would detect things on
> the ship normally.
Except that we have been told that an unshielded densitometer doesn't
work in a grav field (first introduced in _Grand_Survey_, I believe).
If an unshielded densitometer is inside a grav field, or is scanning at
or through an area containing a grav field, the only reading you get is
"artificial grav field".
Shielded densitometers are available; they are considerably larger, more
expensive, and more power-hungry than the unshielded versions (the
shielded versions are the ones listed in the _Referee's_Handbook_).
These work from within a grav field, but still cannot "see" into or
through one.
Presumably the MegaTraveller densitometers use sensitive artificial grav
fields to do their scanning; an external grav field would completely
swamp the signal, and you get no information.
>
> Now, we are told that it is difficult or impossible to
> look through a ship from the outside with a densiometer while the ship's
> plates are on. Well, using my model above, the potential well of the plates
> would make the ship something like a very deep potential well, but with no
> grav field trailing off into space as a normal field would do. Consequently,
> It would look kinda like a fish tank. The fish can see in the water normally,
> we can see around the tank normally, but when one tries to look into the tank
> from the outside, or from inside the tank to the outside, there are distortion
> effects which are rather considerable.
How about this: Grav fields are opaque to densitometers, with one
exception - the grav field surrounding a grav-sheilded densitometer is
transparent to that densitometer.
Coherent grav fields would have sharp edges and would be very well
defined. Presumably, a good operator could tell the difference between
different types of coherent grav fields ("That one's a thruster plate;
that one's the deck gravity, and there's a repulsor bay in operation").
Non-coherent grav fields (like those produced by many small gravitic
devices, air/rafts, and other goodies) would be more nebulous and
fuzzy-looking. Their edges would probably be transparent to some
degree, with the insides being opaque.
>
> If you had sufficient computing power turned on the problem, or data
> on what the ship's grav field "looked" like normally, one would be able to
> scan through the field distortion.
That might be possible; each different kind of grav generator might have
a different "signature" - if you could learn what it was, and subtract
it out, you might be able to scan into or through grav fields to a
limited degree. If it were easy, cheap, or reliable, someone would have
done it a long time ago. This is therefore a place where the referee
and the player characters can have some fun; lots of money, research,
time, and good skill rolls, and they might have something that they can
use against that pesky corsair captain. Or even better yet, have an NPC
scientist who has "almost" solved the problem, and get the player
characters mixed up in the affair (after all, who *WOULDN'T* want to be
able to seen through grav fields with a densitometer).
>
> How's that sound?
All in all, I like it!
>
> 2G Scott
> "Hey! Rocky! That' things fulla Upsidaisium!*" -- Bullwinkle J. Moose
> *Upsidaisium: The anti-gravity metal. See Cavorite*
> *Cavorite: See Upsidaisim :-)
Which one's that from? I have almost all of them! }:-)
Antlers ---/
[email removed]
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Science-Fiction Adventure
in the Far Future