Maneuver drives

[Spartan159]

If maneuver drives are now just powerful gravitic drives, do they even need an external sign of their presence? Couldn't they be located just about anywhere in the hull? And who needs to flip the ship at turnover, just start decelerating...

Comments?

 

[Reban]

There's an illustration of an M-Drive on p.324 that shows an M-Drive to be a cylinder with what is probably the thrust end in contact with the hull.

But I never put too much store in illustration.

The MegaTraveller - Starship Operator's Manual Vol 1 has an excellent explanation of how an M-Drive would function. In MT terms it speak about Thruster Plates but functionally the are the same as T5's M-Drive.

Imagine a plate which when you put power in generates thrust on one side of the plate directed aft at 100%. In other words the M-Drives generates thrust in the opposite direction to the direction of travel. The M-Drive is thrusting against the local gravity source to generate a vector in the opposite direction.

The Starship Operator's Manual fleshes this out by explaining the drive can generate 25% lateral thrust and 10% braking thrust.

Finally, how else can we explain those "nozzles" artists continue to draw M-Drive ships with unless M-Drives have some sort or extrernal plate or port from where thrust issues?


Obviously your mileage may vary and there are going to be lots of theories on this :CoW::CoW::CoW:

 

[whulorigan]

The MegaTraveller - Starship Operator's Manual Vol 1 has an excellent explanation of how an M-Drive would function. In MT terms it speak about Thruster Plates but functionally the are the same as T5's M-Drive.

Imagine a plate which when you put power in generates thrust on one side of the plate directed aft at 100%. In other words the M-Drives generates thrust in the opposite direction to the direction of travel. The M-Drive is thrusting against the local gravity source to generate a vector in the opposite direction.

The Starship Operator's Manual fleshes this out by explaining the drive can generate 25% lateral thrust and 10% braking thrust.

Of course there is this interesting bit of fluff text by the "Old Timer" on p.4 of SOM:

Starship Operator's Manual - Vol I, p.4:

. . . What makes it go are the thrusters, these big plates mounted on the stern of the ship. You could ask some physicist if you wanted the straight skinny; all I know is that there are particles that push against these things and actually move the ship. There's no reason the thruster plates have to be hooked onto the stern; they could go up front or inside, for that matter. Whatever makes this work builds up a lot of light and heat though, so it's a lot easier to sink them from outside.

I heard of a green Naval architect who figured that mounting the thrusters up front would be better. I don't know how many megacredits the brass spent on this idea, until someone ran a halo simulation of what one of these beasts would look like.

Here's the vessel, sneaking up on some blockade runner, except that the thrusters are lit up like a supernova. Passive EMS would've picked it up in a second. It was a dumb idea - the only time I'd want the extra oomph was when I was running, anyhow.

If the above is the case, one could simply mount the drive assembly internally in a 360^o rotating mount, with an external radiator plate.

 

[pendragonman]

THIS IS THE T5 FORUM

Gentlemen,

The OP is referring to the T5 definition of the maneuver drive, thus pointing out how other editions cover it is not useful.

What the OP is missing is that T5 has multiple types of maneuver drive, gravitic only being one of them.

 

[Spartan159]

I'm aware of them but I was referring to the one listed as M-Drive aka Maneuver Drive as described on pages 279 and 280, not the alternate drives described on page 328. For the record I'll suspend belief for MT Thruster plates long before I do the Dean Drive aka Thruster.

 

[SanDragon]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke's_three_laws

 

[whulorigan]

I'm aware of them but I was referring to the one listed as M-Drive aka Maneuver Drive as described on pages 279 and 280, not the alternate drives described on page 328. For the record I'll suspend belief for MT Thruster plates long before I do the Dean Drive aka Thruster.

I agree. I can't suspend my disbelief far enough to handle a Dean-drive.

OTOH, I figure I can just use the rule-mechanics for the Dean-Drive Thruster, and replace the handwavium with some variation on the MT-Thruster technical details.

 

[whulorigan]

If maneuver drives are now just powerful gravitic drives, do they even need an external sign of their presence? Couldn't they be located just about anywhere in the hull? And who needs to flip the ship at turnover, just start decelerating...

Comments?

Based on the T5 RAW, I would say your observation is accurate (in the absence of any other descriptive details).