| terranstrider |
10-30-2010 12:29 AM |
Re: [Spaceships] Your preferences regarding plausible/playable Reactionless Drives
Thanks all for the lesson in physics and an update on current research programs; I’ll certainly purloin some of this information for my campaign. On the off chance that non-mathematicians are not fed feet first into the mass converter; I’ll contribute my two cents worth.
In my campaign’s timeline, the cost benefit line for reaction/reactionless drives was crossed about 100 years ago. Interstellar travel is via wormholes and the average distance between them in a system is 15 AU. Two thirds of my players switch off when the geeks start delta-V calculations, this interruption can kill the mood, so I’ve dropped reaction engines from my Space campaigns (with the exception of rare encounters with “primitives”).
The (almost) reactionless drive I use is based on the development of Photonic Laser Thrusters. Whilst available thrust is miniscule today, I’ve assumed that 900 years in the future at TL10^ / TL11^ it is practical. Although PLTs are not true reactionless drives, they serve the purpose in my campaign of representing the Spaceships’ page 24 Hot Reactionless engine.
Warp drives are strictly theoretical in my campaign.
Leo
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