Small ship universe

[Ishmael]

Precisely. And so it is in the small ship universe of LBB2. That is a big part of why I prefer it.

But it carries more weight, and has fewer limitations to make it based on RW science/physics concerns than to simply say "Because the rules said so."

If allometrics were part of gearhead antics, then there would be no need for 'big ship' vs 'small ship' arguments at all. Both would exist, but for different purposes and missions.

I also feel the square-cube law should affect the number of hardpoints a ship has, but that's a different topic.

 

[Dragoner]

Small ships dart.

Two words: Strawberry Jam

If you can understand that, then you can understand why application of the s-c law is silly to trav ships.

 

[mike wightman]

Given that the OTU seems to totally ignore something so basic to the sciences and engineering, I'm glad for that.

Would that be the science and engineering of acceleration compensators, grav plates, fusion reactors or jump drives? Or the magic manoeuvre drive?

It constantly amazes me what people pick on to discuss real world physics and engineering. Traveller ships have acceleration compensators that make your square/cube law thingy moot

Nope, I haven't clue how they work either.

There are more more obvious issues with Traveller ships than material strength; heat management, which you mention, is the biggest issue and it has never ever been canonically discussed, it hasn't even been handwaved away.

 

[Ishmael]

Would that be the science and engineering of acceleration compensators, grav plates, fusion reactors or jump drives? Or the magic manoeuvre drive?

It constantly amazes me what people pick on to discuss real world physics and engineering. Traveller ships have acceleration compensators that make your square/cube law thingy moot

Except that this discussion is non OTU, thus those things may or may not exist.
Even in the OTU, they may not always exist in a given ship. AND that those things somehow prevent any forces from being 'felt' by structural components. at which point we've deviated from Science Fiction and entered the milieu of fantasy, ala Skylark of Valeron.

Regardless, it'd serve to end the split between 'big ship' and 'small ship' camps for this argument.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Two words: Strawberry Jam

If you can understand that, then you can understand why application of the s-c law is silly to trav ships.

And, if we can't understand that?........

 

[mike wightman]

Except that this discussion is non OTU, thus those things may or may not exist.
Even in the OTU, they may not always exist in a given ship. AND that those things somehow prevent any forces from being 'felt' by structural components. at which point we've deviated from Science Fiction and entered the milieu of fantasy, ala Skylark of Valeron.

Regardless, it'd serve to end the split between 'big ship' and 'small ship' camps for this argument.

I don't recall seeing a single official design that omits the acceleration compensators.

This is the IMTU section - the TU bit suggests that you are using the rules as written and adapting them, hence the OP asking if anyone favours the OTU small ship model or the OTU large ship model.

If you want to throw open the discussion to how small ship vs large ship can be explained by using the real world physics/engineering principle of the square cube relationship you mention you have a whole host of other problems to also deal with.

How do you explain crew surviving constant acceleration of 6g for a month - not to mention the huge lateral g forces generated by manoeuvres?

Traveller has long been in the realm of science fantasy rather than fiction.

 

[mike wightman]

And, if we can't understand that?........

Think about the crew becoming strawberry jam...

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Would that be the science and engineering of acceleration compensators, grav plates, fusion reactors or jump drives? Or the magic manoeuvre drive?

It constantly amazes me what people pick on to discuss real world physics and engineering.

Here's the difference: dumping something like issues of heat or the squared-cubed law are (moderately) simple things our mind can grasp, so they had better be explained away decently. Things like jump drives are a combination handwavium and unobtainium, and are far enough out there that few people will argue the nuts and bolts. (And, I *know* you have seen the threads arguing the nuts and bolts of all those very points you mention. )

(What is a "manoeuvre drive", anyway? Is it one powered by the writings of Jack London or ER Burroughs or Louis L'Amour? You know, a man oeuvre?) :rofl:

 

[Dragoner]

And, if we can't understand that?........

Mike got it....

Traveller has long been in the realm of science fantasy rather than fiction.

These discussions are always like this:

Trav was obviously written by liberal arts types, which is fine, story driven is really they only way to play. It is just funny that people want to replace it with some diesel punk theme and then claim it is any less absurd.

Complexity works against playability in games, unless one is playing with trav versus playing it.

 

[mike wightman]

(What is a "manoeuvre drive", anyway? Is it one powered by the writings of Jack London or ER Burroughs or Louis L'Amour? You know, a man oeuvre?) :rofl:

Manoeuvre is what the Apple spell checker keeps switching to =)

And I'm too lazy to uncorrect it

But then again - spell vacuum - cos at GDW it has two 'c's

 

[mike wightman]

I'm almost tempted to start a new thread.

Realistic starship design from TL9 to TL15...

 

[Dragoner]

I'm almost tempted to start a new thread.

Realistic starship design from TL9 to TL15...

You mean such as "How many blacksmiths does it take to build a F-22 Raptor?"


:devil:

 

[mike wightman]

LOL - pretty good way to put it.

I was just editing my last post with this:

ok more seriously, the CT ship rules assume quite a lot of breakthroughs, so what can we substitute:

artificial gravity => real world, continuous acceleration at 1g or spin gravity

acceleration compensation => no such thing, so limit acceleration and require g suits etc.

the manoeuvre drive (magic fusion rocket or magic reaction less drive) => plasma or ion drive, fission kettle, something else?

fusion power plants => fission power plants

jump drive => our one magic technology to allow for a hard sci fi setting.

heat sinks => heat radiators, wait what , this Battletec?, what are you on about

laser turrets => huge mirrors with much shorter range

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Didn't they do a version of Traveller just like that? It must have been a later edition, 'cause it had a really big number after ... like 2300 or something.

artificial gravity => real world, continuous acceleration at 1g or spin gravity

acceleration compensation => no such thing, so limit acceleration and require g suits etc.

the manoeuvre drive (magic fusion rocket or magic reaction less drive) => plasma or ion drive, fission kettle, something else?

Yep, yep.......

fusion power plants => fission power plants

I think it kept fusion.

jump drive => our one magic technology to allow for a hard sci fi setting

Stutterwarp

heat sinks => heat radiators, wait what , this Battletec?, what are you on about

I seem to recall that being addressed.

laser turrets => huge mirrors with much shorter range

I think this one is adequately addressed by modern technology. Admittedly we don't yet have backpack laser rifles, but have you seen that video for the US Navy's laser research? Ooof!

 

[mike wightman]

This is all a bit tongue in cheek

T2300 was a much harder sci fi setting, but the stutter warp cheats by being two magic technologies in one package - normal space drive and ftl drive.

I don't see fusion power plants being a real world technology anytime soon either so add that to the magic technology of T2300

 

[Ishmael]

I don't recall seeing a single official design that omits the acceleration compensators.

The Happy Roger slow transport out of Hard Times, for example.
Any ship of tech 9 or less ( in MT, inertial compensation shows up at tech 10). TNE and FF&S1 has a section devoted to it ( ffs1 chapter 11 ). 6 G compensation doesn't appear in the OTU until tech 15.
tech 10 .... 1g compensation
tech 11 .... 2g compensation
tech 12 .... 3g compensation
tech 13 .... 4g compensation
tech 14 .... 5g compensation
tech 15 .... 6g compensation

This is the IMTU section - the TU bit suggests that you are using the rules as written and adapting them, hence the OP asking if anyone favours the OTU small ship model or the OTU large ship model

Which 'rules as written'? TNE. MT, T4, home-made?
I merely gave my opinion as to why the 'big ship' vs 'small ship' question is moot.

If you want to throw open the discussion to how small ship vs large ship can be explained by using the real world physics/engineering principle of the square cube relationship you mention you have a whole host of other problems to also deal with.

It would seem to me that many of these problems would be solved by applying some sort of 'realism' to them as well. Noone can survive 6 g for a month...so what? Only at tech 14 could that happen in the OTU anyways. Besides, if cube/square law is used, it quickly becomes apparrent that larger ships are incapable of such sustained accelerations anyways.

However, for small maneuvers such as evading, humans can survive more than 6g's without too much trouble with proper equipment even without g-compensation. Red Bull Air Racing penalizes pilots who pull more than 12 g's. The planes are generally rated in the -10g/12g range.

"Strawberry Jam" is a human limit to accelerations, not a structural one. And it is probably much higher than usually imaged in the OTU for ships...well over 15 g's, I'd think ( and I'd be right ).
And meaningless when discussing RPV's, drones, etc.

 

[SanDragon]

Think about the crew becoming strawberry jam...

Too colorful. More like brown gravy, perhaps...

 

[Dragoner]

Too colorful. More like brown gravy, perhaps...

Those NASA folks are certainly colorful (they coined the term).

 

[SanDragon]

I have been crunching numbers (read as: building ships) in my all too abundant time and have found that structural limits don't even figure into the lower technology levels.

I used the materials limits rules I found at Freelance Traveller (shut up! It's a double ell!!) and started crunching out ships at TL 10 (I wanted Artificial grav and inertial comp) using my MT Ref's Manual.

I should have been able to build ships up to 39,000 tons displacement, but guess what? The ship required too many controls and thus control points which, when the CP multiplier was calculated, overloaded the computer! Which really, really (no, really!!) annoyed me.

It looks like I hit the material//computer limit at 1100 tons displacement, but that design is still pending.

Did I also mention that I'm using Stutterwarp as my FTL drives? Yeah. My Traveller universe is really heretical.

 

[Dragoner]

I have been crunching numbers (read as: building ships) in my all too abundant time and have found that structural limits don't even figure into the lower technology levels.

I used the materials limits rules I found at Freelance Traveller (shut up! It's a double ell!!) and started crunching out ships at TL 10 (I wanted Artificial grav and inertial comp) using my MT Ref's Manual.

I should have been able to build ships up to 39,000 tons displacement, but guess what? The ship required too many controls and thus control points which, when the CP multiplier was calculated, overloaded the computer! Which really, really (no, really!!) annoyed me.

It looks like I hit the material//computer limit at 1100 tons displacement, but that design is still pending.

Did I also mention that I'm using Stutterwarp as my FTL drives? Yeah. My Traveller universe is really heretical.

Pssst....wanna buy a sphere?



No really, this conversation is ancient, people stumble across the square cube law and say Aha! Without realizing that 1. spaceships would mostly be spheres already for various reasons, not just because spheres are the most structurally stable, but for basics like pressurization and 2. the s-c law is useless without actual data and is assumed on contemporary materials science, so to assume that is all there is (which we know is false, future structures will be engineered at the molecular level with matrices on another order of magnitude stronger than todays materials, they are being developed in labs right now) just another absurdity, thus my blacksmiths and raptor comment. Suffice to say there are a huge number of issues, so if one still goes the diesel punk route, it is still: "my magic carpet has a magic carpet."

Though not saying to stop anyone from having fun with it, one thing I have learned is that the OTU never survives contact with the game, much like what Clausewitz or Moltke said of battle plans.