Type S as a Tailsitter Prolate Spheroid

[AnotherDilbert]

Originally Posted by Condottiere

If the drive were reactionless, we wouldn't need inertial compensators.

No, reactionless just means the drive does not kick back against the rest of the universe. It says nothing about how the ship accelerates you.

[AnotherDilbert]

Originally Posted by whartung

It also wouldn't instill momentum, would it?

No, reactionless does not mean massless.

Momentum is just velocity times mass. If the drive instills velocity, it instills momentum.

[Grav_Moped]

All this gets to the question of "what direction is 'down' inside an Air/Raft with the nullgrav modules turned on?"

If it just cancels gravity for the whole vehicle, you'd better have your seat belts fastened to avoid floating out of your seats.
Maybe it shields the contents of the vehicle from gravity, but imposes a 1G "down" field inside the vehicle. Point the nose up for low-drag vertical ascent, and "up" is toward the horizon ("down" is toward the horizon in the other direction).


In any case, I think the original idea for M-drives was fusion rockets (since the M-Drive was a thrust-producing accessory to the power plant, while the Jump Drive did its own thing without concern for the power plant). LBB2 '77 ignored the exhaust problem, HG '77 embraced it (weaponized exhaust rule), and HG '80/LBB2 '81 turned the M-Drive into a reactionless thruster to avoid the exhaust thing.

Not sure where I'm going with this, other than to note that the LBB2 drive table suggests that the TL limit for M-Drives is a constraint on how much of an artificial gravity field you can generate (field strength * affected volume) at the TL, not how much force (acceleration * volume) the drive can generate. Otherwise, the table would allow 7G+ drives.

[AnotherDilbert]

Originally Posted by Grav_Moped

All this gets to the question of "what direction is 'down' inside an Air/Raft with the nullgrav modules turned on?"

Artificial gravity drives just produce thrust, nothing more, just like any other aircraft drive. Grav vehicles work like helicopters. Internal gravity would be the sum of the local gravity field and any acceleration. (Unless we only use LBB1-3, in which case we have no idea how it works.)

Originally Posted by Grav_Moped

Not sure where I'm going with this, other than to note that the LBB2 drive table suggests that the TL limit for M-Drives is a constraint on how much of an artificial gravity field you can generate (field strength * affected volume) at the TL, not how much force (acceleration * volume) the drive can generate.

LBB2 says nothing about artificial gravity nor inertial compensation, that came with LBB5.

If you run an LBB1-3 non-OTU campaign you can use it or not, just as you wish... Weeks in zero gravity (or 6 G) would be a PITA.

[atpollard]

Originally Posted by AnotherDilbert

Weeks in zero gravity (or 6 G) would be a PITA.

Technically, less than an hour at 6 G would be fatal ... G-LOC followed by death.

[Grav_Moped]

Originally Posted by atpollard

Technically, less than an hour at 6 G would be fatal ... G-LOC followed by death.

This explains one of the glitches in CT and Mayday space combat maneuver. It turns out that the vector you get from one turn of maneuver at n Gs is what would result from accelerating at 2n Gs for half the turn and coasting for the second half.

That half turn of coasting is necessary for the crew to recover from each half-turn of acceleration!


Ok, that wasn't really something they did at the time, and I'm not quite sure the math works out either. (12Gs is NOT healthy for humans, of course.)

[Condottiere]

Which is where acceleration couches and tanks come in.

By my calculations, you can getaway with a constant acceleration of one point four for default humans, plus presumably one for the couch, and two for the tank.

[Grav_Moped]

Originally Posted by Condottiere

Which is where acceleration couches and tanks come in.

By my calculations, you can getaway with a constant acceleration of one point four for default humans, plus presumably one for the couch, and two for the tank.

Which is a nice way to add crunchiness to your setting, but might hinder acceptance by players expecting a "cinematic" setting.

[mike wightman]

Just tell them to watch the Expanse - the Donnager battle in series 1 and the battle in the last episode of series 5.

Then tell them that they should forget everything they have ever seen in Star Wars...

[Condottiere]

Some things, anyway.

I don't play Star Wars, but I do look up some of their technical manuals, and it seems to me that their spaceship speeds are kinda slow.