[Ultra-Tech] [Spaceships] Building a cosmic-powered setting

[Michael Thayne]

There's part of me that really wants to build a setting around some of the crazier "torch" drives in Spaceships, particularly the super-fusion torch and maybe the total conversion torch. (If both were used, the former would probably be for combat craft, while the later would be for civilian craft and carriers. I think they work nicely in combination because they have a similar power output.)

But it would be odd to use these in isolation. The super-fusion torch canonically is based on the cosmic super-fusion reactor, and it's really hard to see how you could have such a powerful drive without figuring out how to wield cosmic energies for other purposes. And you'd probably need to invoke cosmic-powered force screens to justify how the drive doesn't incinerate the ship. But what does this mean for personal gear, as opposed to ships? Ultra-Tech gives disintegrators and total conversion beams as one of the very few personal weapons that use cosmic power. There's no options for cosmic-powered blasters or plasma guns, nor is there anything on the implications of such technology for surface vehicles. It's not obvious all cosmic spaceship tech can be scaled down to this level, but surely some of it can?

Tech level would be TL11^ with some TL12^ items. Not sure about total conversion drives—though they're an interesting possibility. Not a fan of disintegrators because they trivialize defense, but conversion beams are a possibility. Or maybe the cosmic weapons of choice are plasma guns. Or antimatter weapons. Or ghost particle beams. Maybe "beams" are out and you need mininukes or antimatter warheads to break through those cosmic force screens. Maybe supplement the cosmic force screens with hyperdense armor with at least 10x the DR of any other material. For lightly armored troops, "armor" might mean something to protect against the massive collateral damage of the weapons in use, not direct hits. Maybe some weapons can't be fired safely without using a sealed suit!

I'm just throwing out ideas here. Has anyone done anything like this?

[thrash]

GURPS Spaceships (p. 46) notes:

"In superscience settings where total conversion power or cosmic energy technology exists, cost of any type of antimatter reaction mass may be as little as $6,000/ton."

So you could have relatively cheap antimatter warheads in your setting.

[ericthered]

Personal defense fields are a strong option here, given that you have have shielding technology around the rockets.

[AlexanderHowl]

The problem with cosmic torch drives is that the energy levels make them cosmic weapons. For example, a SM+6 shuttle using two total conversion torches (2g acceleration) is releasing ~550 TJ of energy per second in their exhaust (the equivalent of over 130 kilotons of TNT). Effectively, every civilian shuttle is detonating a 100 kiloton warhead every second (doing 8d×1000 burn surge rad exp dDamage linked with 6d×5,000 cr ex dDamage every second).

Your shuttles are not transports, they are weapons of mass destruction, and are actually more problematic than reactionless drives because GMs can always give arbitrary maximums to the velocities of reactionless drives. For example, I limit the reactionless drives in my campaigns to a maximum effective delta-v of 360 mps. At that level, a shuttle is still dangerous, but it can only be used as a 4 megaton warhead once, and it takes over four hours of acceleration for a shuttle to reach that velocity at 2g.

[Michael Thayne]

Whoops is there any way to edit thread titles? I put in my tags and then forgot a real title. It was going to be something like "building a cosmic-powered setting".

[Michael Thayne]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

The problem with cosmic torch drives is that the energy levels make them cosmic weapons. For example, a SM+6 shuttle using two total conversion torches (2g acceleration) is releasing ~550 TJ of energy per second in their exhaust (the equivalent of over 130 kilotons of TNT). Effectively, every civilian shuttle is detonating a 100 kiloton warhead every second (doing 8d×1000 burn surge rad exp dDamage linked with 6d×5,000 cr ex dDamage every second).

Your shuttles are not transports, they are weapons of mass destruction, and are actually more problematic than reactionless drives because GMs can always give arbitrary maximums to the velocities of reactionless drives. For example, I limit the reactionless drives in my campaigns to a maximum effective delta-v of 360 mps. At that level, a shuttle is still dangerous, but it can only be used as a 4 megaton warhead once, and it takes over four hours of acceleration for a shuttle to reach that velocity at 2g.

They're certainly not suitable surface-to-orbit drives, I realize. Maybe not even privately owned (or else private owners are very heavily regulated). But if not privately owned, the "civilian" total conversion torchships mentioned in the OP could be part of a state-owned shipping company. I think. I'd like to try to work out the social effects of such technology. Possibly you'd get military dictatorships everywhere. Or maybe you'd get a guaranteed galactic apocalypse. The "galactic apocalypse" is admittedly less what I was hoping for.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

Whoops is there any way to edit thread titles?

Only for moderators. You can change the titles of your posts within a thread, but you can't change the thread title once you've created it.

[munin]

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

… There's no options for cosmic-powered blasters or plasma guns, nor is there anything on the implications of such technology for surface vehicles. …

"Cosmic power cells provide unlimited power to ordinary devices…" (p. UT19)

So if your blaster rifle normally has 10 shots before you have to switch out its regular C cells, with cosmic C cells it has unlimited shots. A grav jeep (p. UT226) with a 2,000 mile range now has unlimited range.

Alternatively, you can take the Spaceships approach to cosmic weapons (p. 31) and keep the shots the same but multiply damage by 10 (which puts most weapons into the same damage range as the published cosmic weapons).

[Michael Thayne]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Only for moderators. You can change the titles of your posts within a thread, but you can't change the thread title once you've created it.

Well, thanks to the moderator who changed this thread title!

Originally Posted by munin

"Cosmic power cells provide unlimited power to ordinary devices…" (p. UT19)

So if your blaster rifle normally has 10 shots before you have to switch out its regular C cells, with cosmic C cells it has unlimited shots. A grav jeep (p. UT226) with a 2,000 mile range now has unlimited range.

Alternatively, you can take the Spaceships approach to cosmic weapons (p. 31) and keep the shots the same but multiply damage by 10 (which puts most weapons into the same damage range as the published cosmic weapons).

I'm more interested in the 10x damage than the unlimited shots / range. Seems a waste just to get the unlimited shots. But 10x seems a little crude, seems to result in many weapons being far more powerful than they really need to be. I think. Because 10x actually seems to put many weapons above disintegrators in power. Is it also consistent with scaling down Spaceships weapons?

[AlexanderHowl]

Well, a SM+4 laser major battery deals 30d of damage every 20 turns and masses 0.5 tons. It is built, however, to have extraordinary range, with a range of S translating to 1000/3000 miles, so the mechanisms required to allow it to be effective over that range probably account for most of the mass. A SM+4 gun is an 8cm gun (over 3"), so it is probably the right mass for its damage of 6d×20.