07-20-2011, 11:24 PM | #11 |
Join Date: May 2005
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Re: [Spaceships] Voyage Time Calculation with Different Drives
Hohmann transfer orbits aren't so bad (the formulae are all on Wikipedia, no need to reproduce them here), but unfortunately you're not in such a nice, simple case here. In this case the fusion rocket has more than enough Δv for a Hohmann transfer orbit, but not so much that you can ignore the Sun's gravity. So you'd want a constrained minimum-time orbit, not a minimum-energy orbit, which would be an exercise in numerical integration rather than simple formulae.
If you want to make sails more appealing than rockets, may I suggest putting the jump point very close to the star? If the escape speed is more than about 2.5 times the typical Δv of your rockets, then a sail is the only efficient way to get there (it gets more efficient as you get closer to the star). TeV EDIT: To clarify, the orbital speed at a distance D (in AU) from a star of mass M (in Solar masses) is: v_orbital = 18.5mps x square_root( M / D ) The escape speed is 1.41 times higher, so the required Δv is 0.41 times this number, or: Δv = 7.67mps x square_root( M / D ) If your rocket's Δv is less than this, you can't approach or escape the jump point. But if your jump point is fixed, rather than orbiting, then a sail is pretty much useless to approach it, unless it has an acceleration greater than the star's gravity at its location. TeV Last edited by teviet; 07-21-2011 at 12:10 AM. Reason: Added formula and clarification. |
07-21-2011, 03:24 PM | #12 |
Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: Berlin, Germany
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Re: [Spaceships] Voyage Time Calculation with Different Drives
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07-21-2011, 03:49 PM | #13 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: [Spaceships] Voyage Time Calculation with Different Drives
Unless you're dealing with extremely high performance drives that can basically treat the solar system as flat (acceleration > 0.001 Gs, delta-V > 100 km/sec) you're likely to wind up with some fairly messy orbital mechanics problems. For the high-thrust low-delta-V drive options, hohmann transfer orbits can be optimal, but they're also prone to being very slow.
As far as piloting skill, you're pretty much out of luck unless you give your human pilots precognition; a computer is simply better than a human at deep space navigation, and the problems are mostly solvable (for sails, since they're inconsistent, you'll need to solve in a statistical manner, but that won't make much difference). A computer won't necessarily think of the various multi-pass solutions for gravitational assist, but you're looking at much simpler problems. |
07-21-2011, 04:27 PM | #14 | |
Join Date: May 2005
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Re: [Spaceships] Voyage Time Calculation with Different Drives
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TeV |
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07-21-2011, 08:20 PM | #15 | |
Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: Oregon
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Re: [Spaceships] Voyage Time Calculation with Different Drives
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07-22-2011, 03:36 AM | #16 | ||
Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: Berlin, Germany
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Re: [Spaceships] Voyage Time Calculation with Different Drives
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"Plotting the best course through the ever shifting solar winds and reacting to the unpredictable fluctuations on helm is more of an art than an exact science. Human intuition has a little edge over computers here." That isn't very hard SF and is probably factually wrong, but it is still within my willing suspension of disbelieve for this setting. Especially if it serves a meta goal. Quote:
The FTL part will have two skill rolls (Navigation (Jumpspace) and Jumping [a psi skill, the jump drive is psi powered for this very reason]) which will actually govern how far the ship arrives from the destination planet, and two skill rolls for the STL part (Navigation (Space) and Spacer (for helm)/Piloting (Low-Performance Spacecraft)) which will vary real space travel time by +/- 5% or so depending on combined margin of success/failure. Even with the small, cross trained crews/parties for PC-tramp freighters that should give three PCs influence over one of the cost variables (trip length) without being super soft space opera. |
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