Magitech Space

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by RogerBW

In that case you have a reactionless drive.

(Put the catapult at the front of a tube, and the guy with Reverse Missiles at the back. The catapult fires down the tube, and the reaction to the stone leaving the catapult provides a forward force. Reverse Missiles guy bounces the stone back, while you quickly rig up a net to catch it. The stone arriving at the net provides a forward force, and no reaction mass has been expended. If you get cunning enough you can even use the stone's arrival to help re-cock the catapult.)

Sorry, I know this isn't the objective of the discussion and I'll shut up about it, but I think it makes the more general point that taking what's originally a dungeon-bashing magic system so far out of its context is going to cause problems.

I'd rather figure out a spell that just provides thrust cheaper than this Rube Goldberg drive, rather than have a setting based on on silly rules hacks.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

So you might have a Swashbuclers in Space environment. Slow firing and limited range and power pistols that act as a prelude to swordfighting. Penetrating Blade on those swords probably makes armor of limited use.

So Dune then... and you could even have the Spacing Guild and their secretive (Elder Thing) Navigators that fold space (teleport)...

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Anthony

The first question is what sort of physics and cosmology is involved; there's no particular reason to think that it's the same as our universe, something like a celestial spheres model seems at least as likely, and it's not like the rules of magic make sense according to normal physics.

That is how Spelljammer did things, if I remember correctly.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Anthony

The first question is what sort of physics and cosmology is involved; there's no particular reason to think that it's the same as our universe, something like a celestial spheres model seems at least as likely, and it's not like the rules of magic make sense according to normal physics.

Let's not and say we did. Remember this is a spinoff of the Yrth in Spaaaaace discussion and Yrth has the same kind of physics and cosmology with mana just as an overlay over the rest of it. So the cultures have bizarro technology due to their various applications of mana but planets still have gravity and revolve around suns.

[Daigoro]

If we're thinking about Banestorm: 2300 or the like, we could think about some crossover and cross-pollination from other sci-fi timelines as a way to jumpstart Yrth's space program. As a forex only, Yrthians learn about space travel when the Banestorm drops a non-functioning Enterprise into orbit, so they reverse engineer it with magic.

[ericthered]

In Yrth, Meteors cause high mana. Which is to say zones where everyone can cast magic. I bet that's why they first went into space.

I'd want a short-cut for enchanting if I ran Yrth in space. Otherwise its just so labor intensive to make the boats fly, let alone provide them with life support. Perhaps powered meteor provides a shortcut? The other option, I think, is draw power, but that is useless for non-mages even in a high-mana zone.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by ericthered

In Yrth, Meteors cause high mana. Which is to say zones where everyone can cast magic. I bet that's why they first went into space.

Probably not. the list of spells that can be cast in High Mana without Magery is pretty small and you still want Skill-12 (at a minimum). It amounts to minor conveniences for geniuses.

High Mana is more interesting to people using Items with the Power Enchantment as yield gets doubles. That can take you from 500+500+1000+2000 to get 4 pts of energy to just the 50o+500. You could even see a specialized version of Power for High Mana that went 250+250 and so on. That makes a big difference for Q&D.

I believe the ruling is that Items with full Power bypass any "Mage Only" notes in their description. Obviously important for Sunbolt pistols.

So you probably want at least some sort of cottage industry mass production for swords and Sunbolt pistols and some other Items which anyone in the setting can then use.

Add an Artificial Gravity spell (and Enchantment) that works the way they do in Traveller where they provide both gravity and inertial compensation and your ships can use actual rockets while still looking like ships. You could also colonize asteroids once you had the artificial gravity as creation of air and water is already covered by Gurps Magic.

I would favor some system of material magic for enchantment particularly the Raw Magic rules from Thaumatology. Perhaps some Alchemical distillation of the Aether with a decent Alchemist being able to produce enough Raw Magic for 100pts worth per day. Conceivably this could even bypass the need for Enchantment spells if a known Enchantment is laid out in a rote process for the Raw Magic.

[sir_pudding]

Asteroids being made of Raw Magic gives a major incentive for space mining.

[Jasonft]

How about using Astral/ Hyperspace for between worlds travel? Normal deep space could be Low Mana, while Astral (away from the planets) is Normal or even High.

More fun could be had with there being various 'levels' or 'moonpaths' or some such. Different zones of Astral (levels of Hyperspace) give different Mana levels and aspects of mana. This zone here gives a bonus when traveling from Mars to Venus but a penalty when doing the reverse. Thus deep space navigation requires constantly updating the maps used by Pilots (different thing from captains) and a near encyclopedic knowledge of Astronomy and Astrology.

Of course there *are* things that live in these pockets.