11-17-2017, 02:41 PM | #1 | |
Join Date: Jul 2013
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[Blog] n-Body Politics
https://nbodypolitics.gitlab.io/
Finally starting a blog on the setting I had in mind for some time. I will also include corresponding rules, examples, and thoughts on GURPS rules related to sci-fi. Starting with the first post: Quote:
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11-18-2017, 06:54 AM | #3 | |
Join Date: Jul 2013
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Re: [Blog] n-Body Politics
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No, wait, hear me out! Spoilers follow, but I'm trying to mark at least those for the later books. I'd argue that much of the Expanse's less optimistic parts stem from the two factors of essentially only having a bipolar world and weapon yields. Note that I'm only looking at the Protomolecule as a generic catalyst of tension; the same might have been achieved by new technology. Now, much of the tension comes from the fact that there are essentially only two main factions (Earth and Mars) plus the Third-World-equivalent (the Belt). This means that your conflicts are immediately much bigger, and escalation (coupled with the high weapon yields) much more dangerous. However, I'd argue that THS, were it a bipolar world, could easily see something like that. The Pacific War can be compared to any of the Earth/Mars conflicts in the Expanse, except it actually went hot even on Earth. It just wasn't as destructive because the two factions didn't cover half a globe. Or look at the Andes War. We also, in THS, tend to concentrate on the fifth-wave nations and on space (which has to have a high TL). The Expanse, on the other hand, looks at the proverbial underbelly of the system. What do you know about Earth? That there are 30 billion people who, according to Martian propaganda, consume free drugs and get a basic income. That suggests an acceptably high planetary income, but we almost never visit those places. Spoiler for Nemesis Games
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In summary, I'd actually say that the differences come more from a concentration on the poorer areas, only two main powers, and a higher "vulnerability" of the whole setting and situation - a necessity if you want to have those high-stakes stories. THS is still more optimistic, though. But don't worry, I plan to be inspired much more by THS. |
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11-18-2017, 11:40 AM | #4 |
Banned
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: 100 hurricane swamp
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Re: [Blog] n-Body Politics
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11-22-2017, 11:47 AM | #5 | |
Join Date: Jul 2013
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Re: [Blog] n-Body Politics
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11-22-2017, 04:44 PM | #6 |
Join Date: Oct 2015
Location: Cincinnati, OH, USA
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Re: [Blog] n-Body Politics
--Thoughts on FTL system--
Overall, your hyperdrive looks good. I'm confused, though. What is the range on your FTL drive? Or have you not come up with a specific number yet? Note that your FTL design hasn't eliminated the potential for c-fractional (i.e. relativistic) projectiles. If you can drop out of hyperspace around asteroids, what is stopping you from dropping out at an asteroid in interstellar space? That would give you enough range to reach c-fractional velocity if you have a reactionless drive. If you're going to include reactionless STL drives, preventing this kind of abuse requires the FTL drive to be limited to the main part of a system or have sensors capable of detecting ships traveling at FTL at interstellar ranges. Having the exclusion zone scale with mass seems more plausible than it scaling with diameter. That is a little more cumbersome than just using the diameter of the object. But on par with the math you would need to use the reaction drives from Spaceships. However, I find it hard to believe that the arrival zone has a hard boundary. I'd allow daring captains to jump in closer. But I can't figure out an astrogation penalty scheme that is light enough to make this plausible without making it so easy that everyone would risk it to cut right to the recharge zone. So never mind. Speaking of which, what is being recharged at these pit stops? --Other Thoughts-- Does FTL communication exist in this setting? Or is communication limited to ship speeds? |
11-23-2017, 10:29 AM | #7 | |||||
Join Date: Jul 2013
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Re: [Blog] n-Body Politics
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Also, thank you for the interest! |
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11-24-2017, 11:05 AM | #8 |
Hero of Democracy
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: far from the ocean
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Re: [Blog] n-Body Politics
They start at rest with regards to the object? Ok, that took guts to go for. It also means that if your STL light drives fails, you face certain death after a FTL jump.
5 kps is a huge delta-V cost, particularly if you make it apply both ways. with 10 kps I can get into orbit from earth's surface. And I can't just use an efficient Ion drive, because I'll slam into the earth first. So it looks like I'm going to have to spend large parts of my ship either storing fuel or massing three rocket engines to get the acceleration I need. Its not as bad as planetary take-off, fortunately, because falling is an option, and because you don't need to accelerate quite as fast, but it still places restricting demands on the drives. So I wanted to know how different sizes of planet act with these rules, and what minimal spacecraft engines look like. And you made me spend an hour doing math. Hopefully some of it will be useful to you: if you don't use engines after appearing around earth, you have a little less than 8 hours before you impact. using 1.11 * (R^3/(GM))^.5 gives the time to the center of the body. I figured the actual numbers, but those equations are nasty, and this gives pretty good results. Resting time to impact simplifies down to about 35 * (GM)^.25 if you use .1 newtons instead of .01G Engines need to be .015 G's or greater in order to make orbital velocity before the powered crash time is up. This is constant regardless of the body you are orbiting. the actual minimum is something else, but it lower, depends on the mass and radius of the orbiting body, and this is probably a good rule of thumb. It's also interesting, because a lot of rocket engines play just above or just below this values. The KPS for the resting orbit of a body is (GM)^.25 the resting orbit for a body is (GM)^.5 * I am sorry for liberally mixing earth gravity with the gravitational constant, both represented by G. If the G has an M next to it, its the gravitational constant. On minimally viable objects, all the planets have a recharge zone, the Galileans and Titan have recharge zones, but Pluto and Ceres do not, reinforcing the categorization of them as dwarf planets. Earth's moon does have a recharge zone, and in fact bodes like it take less fuel to use as stopping places. The cheapest place to stop in the solar system is Europa, but the next is earth's moon, both being about of third of what you'd spend to land on earth. There are probably some kuiper belt objects that can be used as rechargers, but we haven't found any in the solar system, which means they may very well be secrets well guarded by militaries, guilds, and smugglers. Or valuable waypoints through gaps in a network. You CAN use a star directly, but you'll want really big fuel tanks to pull that off. A minimal red dwarf requires 50 kps to stabilize, and twice that if you ever want to leave. The sun requires 107 kps to stabilize. I think the minimum vessel I'd try jumping to a star would have 3 Advanced pulsed fusion drives, 2 fusion engines, and 11 tanks of fuel at TL9. The remaining fifth of the ship is probably shielding, control, life support, and living quarters for the nuts trying this out. And two weeks worth of food.
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Be helpful, not pedantic Worlds Beyond Earth -- my blog Check out the PbP forum! If you don't see a game you'd like, ask me about making one! Last edited by ericthered; 11-24-2017 at 11:43 AM. |
11-26-2017, 05:39 AM | #9 | ||||
Join Date: Jul 2013
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Re: [Blog] n-Body Politics
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11-27-2017, 08:15 AM | #10 | |
Hero of Democracy
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: far from the ocean
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Re: [Blog] n-Body Politics
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Unless there is a way to fire the FTL twice in quick succession. Then that might become the best way to do surveys. Brown dwarfs are a pretty expensive option, yeah. Its actually shorter to use the moon 10 times than to use jupiter once. I wasn't thinking of brown dwarves. I was thinking of some Icy body like Pluto or Eris orbiting a star at long distance. Eris is within 20% gravity of letting you recharge your drive. Such a body is going to be hard to find and cheap to travel to: great for smugglers, pirates, and military forces.
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Be helpful, not pedantic Worlds Beyond Earth -- my blog Check out the PbP forum! If you don't see a game you'd like, ask me about making one! |
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