12-08-2017, 09:39 AM | #11 | |
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: Brighton
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Re: A new magical airship scheme
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One thing, while for example string winds might not be able damage a vacuum dome directly, they might push against the dome strongly enough to put pressure on the whole deck that the dome shares with others. *I.e. is catastrophic deck failure here suddenly losing buoyancy? |
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12-08-2017, 09:50 AM | #12 | |
Join Date: Sep 2007
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Re: A new magical airship scheme
The deck has to bear the weight of itself and anything it carries, just as if it were a bridge, or suspended by cables from a conventional balloon. The sphere(s) will exert an upward force from their center (presumably; I suppose you could argue for the interior of the lift sphere or its boundary), so there are the bending moments and shear forces you'd have just as it were a platform centered on a pole.
The airship mage-ineers might prefer several smaller spheres to one large one for such reasons. Since the cost of an AE spell is linear with radius, but the buoyancy is a cube, as it's a function of volume, fewer spheres will be preferred for cost reasons. Then there's possibly a desire for redundancy for military reasons, if enemy mages can dispel or suppress your spheres. So that at least gives you a design question designers can argue about in-game. Quote:
Buoyancy drops as altitude increases (assuming air density on the magical planet behaves as on real-world Earth). So there's some altitude at which the spheres will stop rising, possibly the edge of space if there's vacuum inside. Perhaps the space above a battle is littered with drifting bubbles, or there are enterprising scavengers braving the extreme conditions to salvage those spheres (say, if there are valuable material components needed in the enchantment construct). Last edited by Anaraxes; 12-08-2017 at 09:56 AM. |
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12-08-2017, 11:18 AM | #13 |
Wielder of Smart Pants
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ventura CA
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Re: A new magical airship scheme
Why would a magical sphere of vacuum be buoyant rather than just sit there? Usually in FRPGs vacuum effects are aphysical in this way, otherwise they would be pretty useless as attacks.
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12-08-2017, 11:46 AM | #14 | |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: A new magical airship scheme
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There is only one vacuum attack in Gurps Magic and that is the usually short-lived vacuum produced by Destroy Air. There is no great body of vacuum attacks to cite as precedent.
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Fred Brackin |
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12-08-2017, 11:51 AM | #15 |
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Meifumado
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Re: A new magical airship scheme
I think they're just ignored for convenience sake, whereas here it's the basis of a design principle, so it's fair to focus on the "scientific" effects. But I'm not sure what kind of magical vacuum attacks you're thinking of that should otherwise be anchored.
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12-08-2017, 02:53 PM | #16 | |
Wielder of Smart Pants
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ventura CA
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Re: A new magical airship scheme
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12-08-2017, 02:56 PM | #17 | |
Night Watchman
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
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Re: A new magical airship scheme
Quote:
There seems to be a need for a bubble whose Maxwell's Demon can have its settings changed. That's the equivalent for these things of valving off gas in a conventional airship.
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12-08-2017, 03:31 PM | #18 | ||
Join Date: Sep 2007
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Re: A new magical airship scheme
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Quote:
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12-08-2017, 08:58 PM | #19 | |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: A new magical airship scheme
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__________________
Fred Brackin |
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12-08-2017, 09:06 PM | #20 | |
Wielder of Smart Pants
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ventura CA
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Re: A new magical airship scheme
Quote:
. My point is that bubbles of magical vacuum can't be assumed to follow physics, although I suppose Aristotlean mechanics would have outer space as the natural place of rest for the void. |
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