Fusiondrive Control Incorporated

> > Hole one does IMHO not need to be plugged. It has been noted in several
> > canonic sources that they *are* intensely vulnerable, so this won't change
> > anything.
>
> Solid objects on vacuum worlds are still solid objects; it's just as bad
> for your ship to turn the drive on a space station or other large, solid
> object.  So vacuum worlds aren't *really* that vulnerable.

  I imagine that the mechanism that harm the ship works like this: The
fusion rocket eject <whatever> (soft xrays perhaps:). If it is inside an
atmosphere, it will form a classical fireball just aft of the ship. If it
is close to an object in vacuum, it will hit the object and do damage through
thermal and ionizing radiation and perhaps particles of different kinds too.
Since it is so powerful it will make a 'fireball' of the material if it is
close enough and that will emit thermal radiation that harms the ship.
Reflexion of particles and thermal radiation is also possible.

  Since the intensity of the exhaust drops with the square (or is it cube?
it's 11PM here in Sweden:) of the distance, the retransmittance/reflexion
isn't perfect, and the intensity of radiation going back the other way also
drops with the square (cube?) there should be a range at which the ship would
do some damage without any major ill effects to itself.

> > Presumably the missile engines are related to the maneuver jets of the
> > ships, and since the 'BAD IDEA' idea needs that the maneuver jets are usable
> > in the atmosphere without any major bad effects, missile engines behave
> > similarily.
>
> Maybe not.

  I can accept a continous plasma gun with range 10 and pen 10 resulting from
the maneuver jets. Imagine the difficulty in maneuvering the whole bloody
ship to aim the thing! :)

> This is just speculation right now, so let me know what you
> folks think:
>
> Maneuvering jets are only used in vacuum, where the jet dissipates and
> there are no thermal effects to harm the ship.  The jets are small
> enough that they can be used down to the last few tens of meters in a
> docking operation (at which point the delicate final maneuvers are done
> with gas jets (use LH2 or water in a resistojet) and gyros for
> rotational control.
>
> When entering (or leaving) an atmosphere, the ContraGrav lifters are
> used to vary the ship's attraction to (or repulsion from) the planet.

  I know I used this for a suggested evasive tactics, but there *is* large
grey areas around the CG, especially now in TNE when it has been made clear
that you can't use it for propulsion.
  The CG in general is a minfield of rationalizations that can backfire in
nasty ways: Imagine a powerplant that uses a weight suspended with CG
and has a generator attached to the wire. If the energy used up by the CG
is less that what you get out of the generator, you have yourself a free
energy device at least as good as the 'thruster plate power plant' that
was possible in MegaT:)

  IMHO we should follow the examples given (that CG needs additional
thrust of some kind to get anywhere).

> Another option: Small maneuvering jets (as above) used only in a vacuum,
> along with gas jets and gyros for fine and close quarters maneuvering.
> WHen in an atmosphere, special ramscoops are opened (part of the cost
> for an atmospherically-stremlined design) which admit ram air into the
> engine compartment.

  I remember the HOTOL and wonder if this setup could be combined with the
fuel scoops:)
  (That would give a reason for keeping the fuel scoops even though GG
skimming is very rare in TNE)

> >   Hmm, I think I've changed opinion again: To avoid making the class 2+
> > missiles totally worthless, there should *not* be an 'Extra Close -1 diff'
> > mod.
>
> Sounds reasonable.  They don't sound too difficult to hit in the first
> place; and after all, they are a very small target, close in, and moving
> quite fast.

  I'm not certain how an MFD and the sensor lock requirement affect the
usability of missiles. The MFD could presumably make it much easier to fire
against one missile, but the sensor lock could make it more difficult to
fire against the second missile in the same turn.
  Have you found any specific mention of if it is allowed to change fire
to new targets within a turn?

> [email removed]

- -bertil-
- --
"It can be shown that for any nutty theory, beyond-the-fringe political view or
 strange religion there exists a proponent on the Net. The proof is left as an
 exercise for your kill-file."

Bertil:
>   Yikes! Force fields as a 'every ships item' in Traveller. Somehow that
> idea does not excite me.

OK. I don't insist on force fields. If you can make the game universe work
with more realistic means then that's splendid. Everything else being
equal I'll take realism over wierd science every day. But that's a big if:
everything else being equal. I'll take fun gaming over realism every day.
If a realistic economic system makes piracy totally uneconomic then bugger
realism. If a realistic starship propulsion system makes private fusion
blowtorches as common as trucks then stuff realism. If a realistic weapon
system is all-offense/no defense (or vice versa) then boo to realism.

>>Item: I don't want just any starship owner to be able to torch
>>planets at will, yet we have these super blowtorches. Answer: Planetary
>>force screens.
>
>  I think "BAD IDEA to run the fusion drive in an atmopshere and BAD IDEA
>to run it within a km or three from a solid object" takes care of this.

How bad an idea would you say that driving a truck full of explosives into
a fortress wall is? Yet fanatics have been known to do just that.

>  Possible holes: Vacuum worlds, 'Suicide ships', and the rockets in
>missiles:
>
>  Hole one does IMHO not need to be plugged. It has been noted in several
>canonic sources that they *are* intensely vulnerable, so this won't change
>anything.
>
>  Hole two is made a little smaller by that ships are expensive, even more
>in TNE and the trouble in arranging a remote control or whatnot,

I thought that TNE rules was to be applicable to any Traveller period. That
ships are going to be few and far between for a few decades after 1200 is no
use in the general way. I personally hope to justify privately owned ships
in Aoreriyya by 1210.

>and the
>remainder of it does not need to be plugged, since you can (probably) get
>the same effects by blowing the powerplant.

That just means that power plants needs a fix too.

>  Hole three is plugged with doubletalk (but not as bad doubletalk as
>cheap, common and generally magic 'force fields':).

If force fields exist at all I see no reason why cheap, common force fields
is any worse doubletalk than expensive, rare ones. As for the magic part:
sure they're magic, but are they any more magic than jump drives, psionics,
and contragravity?

>  The enthusiasm over the missiles may have given the wrong impression but
>at medium ranges, against any vessel with a energy weapon, the missiles are
>IMHO balanced wrgt the other starship weapons: This is mostly because you
>can shoot them down *at any point of their journey*, and this translates
>to several times during a 'typical missile journey'.

Slice it any way you like, unless you can come up with a cheap, common, and
effective way to protect communities from a nuclear missile then cheap,
common nuclear missiles are BAD, BAD, BAD in a gaming sense. Since (as far
as I know) nuclear missiles _would_ (realistically) be cheap and common in
a high-tech environment I think some protection is in order. And note that
I advocated that such force fields should be expensive: To be found in
cities and on warships, but not in towns and on merchant ships.


      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     [email removed]
- ------------
        "The referee should determine the nature of subsequent
         events based on the individual situation."
                                _76 Patrons_, p. 8

Bertil Jonell [email removed] writes:
>   I imagine that the mechanism that harm the ship works like this: The
> fusion rocket eject <whatever> (soft xrays perhaps:). If it is inside an

Probably a jet of hydrogen and helium plasma.  Effectively a continous
plasma gun of some size, as you mention below.  Drop-off is proportional
to the square of the distance, but the constant of proportionality is
different for a cone than for a sphere.

>   I know I used this for a suggested evasive tactics, but there *is* large
> grey areas around the CG, especially now in TNE when it has been made clear
> that you can't use it for propulsion.

Believe it or not, I wasn't using it for propulsion.  I got the idea by
watching paper airplanes fly (they don't have any propulsion either).
All of the control (I was flying sophisticated paper airplanes with
canards, leading edge slats, trailing-edge flaps, rudders and the like)
and the "propulsion" is provided by gravity.  If you made your starship
as light a paper airplane, it could glide too.  Imagine for a
moment a streamlined ship re-entering an atmosphere from orbit (the US
Space Shuttle is a good example).  It re-enters and files in to a
landing without the application of any thrust (after the de-orbit burn,
which happens in a vacuum).  Now imagine a starship equipped with CG
lifters doing the same maneuver.  It wouldn't need heat shielding tiles,
because the rate of descent could be controlled by varying the lift of
the CG lifters.  If the ship is at all streamlined (a basic cone, or a
lifting body of some type) aerodynamic control surfaces can control it's
heading, and it can glide in to the landing pad.  If it actually is an
airframe (like the space shuttle), it can be flown like a glider, with
surprising precision and grace.  Launching works exactly the same way,
except that you are falling UP instead of DOWN.

>   The CG in general is a minfield of rationalizations that can backfire in
> nasty ways: Imagine a powerplant that uses a weight suspended with CG
> and has a generator attached to the wire. If the energy used up by the CG
> is less that what you get out of the generator, you have yourself a free
> energy device at least as good as the 'thruster plate power plant' that
> was possible in MegaT:)

Granted, but my idea doesn't depend on a something-for-nothing effect;
it still works fine no matter how much energy the CG requires to
maintain it's lift (as long as the ship has a power plant capable of
running the CG).  My "trick" works by using the CG to control the rate
at which potential energy is exchanged for kinetic energy, and by
transforming and controlling the kinetic energy by the action of air flowing
over lifting surfaces.  Principles familliar to all sailplane pilots.

>   IMHO we should follow the examples given (that CG needs additional
> thrust of some kind to get anywhere).

Right.  In this case, the "thrust" is lift force generated by the
atmosphere passing over aerodynamic surfaces, as the ship falls through
the air.  Without a CG, you need heat shielding and attain multi-dozen
mach numbers.  With the CG, you keep it under a couple of machs at all
times, and come in for a nice slow landing.  And you can control your
glide ratio, too.

>   I remember the HOTOL and wonder if this setup could be combined with the
> fuel scoops:)
>   (That would give a reason for keeping the fuel scoops even though GG
> skimming is very rare in TNE)

I like this idea!

>   Have you found any specific mention of if it is allowed to change fire
> to new targets within a turn?

I've only skimmed the ship combat as yet.  I'll have a much better idea
about what will and won't work after I study it thouroughly (planned for
this week).


[email removed]
- --------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                 Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                            in the New Era

> >  I think "BAD IDEA to run the fusion drive in an atmopshere and BAD IDEA
> >to run it within a km or three from a solid object" takes care of this.
>
> How bad an idea would you say that driving a truck full of explosives into
> a fortress wall is? Yet fanatics have been known to do just that.

  There is a difference here and it ties in with this:

> >  Hole two is made a little smaller by that ships are expensive, even more
> >in TNE and the trouble in arranging a remote control or whatnot,
>
> I thought that TNE rules was to be applicable to any Traveller period.

  and this:

> That just means that power plants needs a fix too.

  Having fusion rockets as 'the fusiongun from hell' means that you have an
*unlimited ammo* *no-cost ammo* weapon. Letting people detonate their ships
for some kilotons to some megatons of effect means that they have a *one
shot* *MCr40+ per shot* weapon.
  These limitations on detonating ships (either through fooling with the
powerplant or with the jump drive) takes away it's usefulness and removes
the problem IMHO.

> >  Hole three is plugged with doubletalk (but not as bad doubletalk as
> >cheap, common and generally magic 'force fields':).
>
> If force fields exist at all I see no reason why cheap, common force fields
> is any worse doubletalk than expensive, rare ones. As for the magic part:
> sure they're magic, but are they any more magic than jump drives, psionics,
> and contragravity?

  In Traveller they are.

  (Although I personally agree with the psionics:)

> >  The enthusiasm over the missiles may have given the wrong impression but
> >at medium ranges, against any vessel with a energy weapon, the missiles are
> >IMHO balanced wrgt the other starship weapons: This is mostly because you
> >can shoot them down *at any point of their journey*, and this translates
> >to several times during a 'typical missile journey'.
>
> Slice it any way you like, unless you can come up with a cheap, common, and
> effective way to protect communities from a nuclear missile then cheap,
> common nuclear missiles are BAD, BAD, BAD in a gaming sense.

> And note that
> I advocated that such force fields should be expensive: To be found in
> cities and on warships, but not in towns and on merchant ships.

  What you look for already exists in TTNE and it is called the Master Fire
Director. You find it on warships and in the defence networks of worlds, but
not on merchant ships. Allowing the MFD to do the same for defensive fire
as for offensive fire means that a character with skill 5 and attribute 5
has a 95% chanse of stopping the missile *per individual weapon firing*
controlled by a TL8 MFD!
  Tie two lasers to the MFD and you get a 99.75% stop probability. Three
and it becomes 99.9875%.

  (Ok, there might be some cultural issues here. I (and presumably Hans?)
don't think that having shore batteries (guns and missiles) around civilian
harbours and gun turrets around international airports in Real Life is
in anyway strange. There are batteries around Gothenburg (a few manned even
now) and turrets around Arlanda International (unmanned).
  Personally I've always assumed that any starport higher than E (and many E
ports too) has several batteries of lasers and missiles. Manned.)

>       Hans Rancke
> University of Copenhagen
>      [email removed]

- -bertil-
- --
"It can be shown that for any nutty theory, beyond-the-fringe political view or
 strange religion there exists a proponent on the Net. The proof is left as an
 exercise for your kill-file."

> >   The CG in general is a minfield of rationalizations that can backfire in
> > nasty ways: Imagine a powerplant that uses a weight suspended with CG
> > and has a generator attached to the wire. If the energy used up by the CG
> > is less that what you get out of the generator, you have yourself a free
> > energy device at least as good as the 'thruster plate power plant' that
> > was possible in MegaT:)
>
> Granted, but my idea doesn't depend on a something-for-nothing effect;
> it still works fine no matter how much energy the CG requires to
> maintain it's lift (as long as the ship has a power plant capable of
> running the CG).  My "trick" works by using the CG to control the rate
> at which potential energy is exchanged for kinetic energy, and by
> transforming and controlling the kinetic energy by the action of air flowing
> over lifting surfaces.  Principles familliar to all sailplane pilots.

  Yes, going down. But how about going up? Standing on the ground you have
zero potential energy (if the ground is zero) and zero kinetic energy.

> [email removed]

- -bertil-
- --
"It can be shown that for any nutty theory, beyond-the-fringe political view or
 strange religion there exists a proponent on the Net. The proof is left as an
 exercise for your kill-file."

> From: Bertil Jonell [email removed] writes:
> Wildstar:
> > Granted, but my idea doesn't depend on a something-for-nothing effect;
> > it still works fine no matter how much energy the CG requires
> Yes, going down. But how about going up? Standing on the ground you have
> zero potential energy (if the ground is zero) and zero kinetic energy.

Well, I *have* assumed that the CG lifters can lift the ship a nonzero
distance off of the ground (just as they can for an air-raft or a grav
bike).  Presumably, they will require energy input appropriate to the
work being done (but knowning GDW, I'm not going to count on it).

Until someone can tell me a good reason why not, I'm going to use the
following rationale in my campaigns:  ContraGravity devices can
manipulate the local gravitational field, effectively producing a force
exactly opposed to local gravity, with a magnitude anywhere between 0
and 2 times (inclusive) of the local gravitational force.

Therefore, the maximum upward velocity that can be produced is the
world's escape velocity, and the maximum downward velocity that can be
cancelled is also the escape velocity.  In my campaigns, the CG will be
completely umable to produce any forces in any direction other than
directly against the vector of the local gravitational force.

The energy input to a CG device will be proportional to the work being
done (and the constant of proportionality will be greater than 1 ;) so
that perpetual motion machines are still impossible.

While some of the above will probably be invalidated by the Technical
Architecture Manual (or even detailed analysis of the vehicles in
T:TNE), the above at least makes sense to me, and doesn't grossly
violate any of the laws of physics.


[email removed]
- --------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                 Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                         in the Far Future