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awarnock · 09-20-2017, 08:58 PM

I don't think you need to use reactionless thrusters to get where you want to go. Space opera tends to assume some stupidly powerful engines, powerful enough that most gravity wells are just an annoyance at worst. If that's the case, then why not just say 1 tank of fuel gets you x AU? The engines are torch drives so we can assume that they're using brachistochrone flight profiles rather than hohmann flight profiles. Burn halfway there and then burn the rest of the way to brake at your destination. No need for giving Sir Newton the finger.

As for the map, I'd say either get reasonably close to the real thing as you can or put it in another galaxy far, far away and skip the headache of trying to collate the latest data for the local interstellar neighborhood. If you really want to use the Milky Way, though, you can do what I'm doing and base the map off this one from the Galaxy Map site. For the curious, here is the one I'm working on.

Besides, why would you want a reactionless drive anyway? You miss out on the lances of thermonuclear fire as ships desperately try to dodge out of the way of incoming fire, or as they try for a Souza maneuver.

09-20-2017, 08:58 PM	#90
awarnock Join Date: Oct 2014	Re: Spitballing a Space Opera Boxed Set I don't think you need to use reactionless thrusters to get where you want to go. Space opera tends to assume some stupidly powerful engines, powerful enough that most gravity wells are just an annoyance at worst. If that's the case, then why not just say 1 tank of fuel gets you x AU? The engines are torch drives so we can assume that they're using brachistochrone flight profiles rather than hohmann flight profiles. Burn halfway there and then burn the rest of the way to brake at your destination. No need for giving Sir Newton the finger. As for the map, I'd say either get reasonably close to the real thing as you can or put it in another galaxy far, far away and skip the headache of trying to collate the latest data for the local interstellar neighborhood. If you really want to use the Milky Way, though, you can do what I'm doing and base the map off this one from the Galaxy Map site. For the curious, here is the one I'm working on. Besides, why would you want a reactionless drive anyway? You miss out on the lances of thermonuclear fire as ships desperately try to dodge out of the way of incoming fire, or as they try for a Souza maneuver.