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Type S as a Tailsitter Prolate Spheroid

Is the population density really that high?

Checking... OC has a lower pop density than the Netherlands (still mostly farmland), but of course crazy high compared to Sweden.

It's not the population density, it's the cost of the land under the house.
 
It's not the population density, it's the cost of the land under the house.

That. My sister lives in a DC suburb so housing is crazy. Of course, I live in Asheville, NC and housing is crazy but we have a lot more space.

Back on topic: could just use a grav shaft: ladder/guide rails but no gravity. 'Course then you may have to do a Zero G success roll to use it :)

edit: plus, in the event of losing gravity for whatever reason, you are already used to it!
 
Is the population density really that high?

No.

They want it that high.

They want more density.

Much of OC is built out.

Several years ago, we got a blue bird gift in that two, large, military air bases got decommissioned. Much of what was scheduled to be done with that land got derailed in 2008, but it's all coming back strong now.

They're not going to build them up as 10,000 sq foot lots, that's for sure.

They're boosting density in order to get people closer to where they work, and reduce overall traffic. Improve public transit.

There's a corridor of light industrial buildings that have all been torn down and replaced with high density apartments, condos, and townhomes.
 
That. My sister lives in a DC suburb so housing is crazy. Of course, I live in Asheville, NC and housing is crazy but we have a lot more space.

Back on topic: could just use a grav shaft: ladder/guide rails but no gravity. 'Course then you may have to do a Zero G success roll to use it :)

edit: plus, in the event of losing gravity for whatever reason, you are already used to it!
That's a good idea. I'd keep it at 0.1G or less -- just enough to maintain orientation, but low enough to prevent dropped objects (or falling personel) from reaching dangerous velocities.
But, what if the artificial gravity fails? That's a long climb at 1G, let alone 2G...


Oh, and for what it's worth, the artificial gravity only needs to pull upwards, and doesn't need to be reversible. Perceived gravity would then be 0-1G downward, depending on the ship's actual acceleration level.

Now, you'd probably make it reversible so things are always at 1G regardless of acceleration, just for consistency. But you don't have to if you want your spaceships to work differently.

And if it's reversible, you can use it as an elevator. Step in to the 0-G shaft, select your destination level, and you fall (up or down) to that level, get stopped by the grav field, and held at 0G at that level until you step back out.
 
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If you are using a magic reactionless maneuver drive then there is no 'effective gravity' from acceleration.
It's only reaction drives that will grant the illusion of gravity.
 
If you are using a magic reactionless maneuver drive then there is no 'effective gravity' from acceleration.
It's only reaction drives that will grant the illusion of gravity.


Why not?


The reactionless part only refers to the means of generating acceleration, that acceleration is still happening and therefore a 1G ship is still accelerating towards the position of those aboard.



If you are freefall within the ship when it starts accelerating, that's a wall/bulkhead coming at you at 10/m per second, if you are standing on a tailsitter floor your body is having to work to compensate for that push as though it were on a 1G planet, and if you 'drop' a rock and a feather the ship rushes up towards them at the same rate and gives the illusion of gravity working on a normal world.


If somehow the ship's drive is 'accelerating everything in the field equally' such that the crewman floating in zero-g when the ship starts accel remains in perfect relative motion without any connection to the ship, I've got to think you're going to have some VERY strange physics onboard, and some real difficulty in moving and doing anything. Or, everything is zero-G all the time unless you postulate artificial gravity.
 
Reactionless - no reaction

no reaction no imaginary gravity.

The magic reaction drive is accelerating everything within the drive's volume of effect - ie you are accelerated at the same rate as the floor, walls etc so you are weightless.
 
no reaction no imaginary gravity.
The drive may be "reactionless", but you are not.


The magic reaction drive is accelerating everything within the drive's volume of effect - ie you are accelerated at the same rate as the floor, walls etc so you are weightless.
No, MT makes it clear that M-drives creates thrust that pushes the M-drive itself.

There is no field accelerating the entire ship (with content) equally.


So, a force accelerates the M-drive, the force is distributed to the ship, and you, accelerating it the conventional Newtonian way with "equal but opposite effect" and hence perceived acceleration.


The reactionless part only refers to the means of generating acceleration, that acceleration is still happening and therefore a 1G ship is still accelerating towards the position of those aboard.
Yes, exactly.
 
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.
 
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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.)


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.
 
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.)
 
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 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.
 
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...
 
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.
 
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