[Space] Adapting "Honorverse" Concepts to GURPS

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by warellis

What TL would Honorverse technology be considered to be at? Are they at TL 10 or 11? For instance how would GURPS classify the pulsers which are "gravity"-accelerated mass drivers?

And what of the impeller wedges? They're obviously a superscience tech, but is there any tech level they fit in?

Honorverse is far beyond TL10. It's just light on laser pistols, probably due to power cell tech or something like that.

Honorverse grav guns are very much the TL11^ guns of that name in UT. It's a very clear port. I've even heard that David Pulver may even have suggested to David Weber the idea of gravity-based projectile weapons before the whole series started.

They have a form of TL11^ barrier shields. Space stations without impeller walls can put up "spherical sidewalls". They're just relatively weak compared to the regular sidewalls anchored to the impeller wedges.

Grasers, even huge ones appropriate to SM16 or 17 SDs designed with Spaceships should be TL12.

The Grav Lances are UT TL11^ Gravity Beams though not in portable form.

Those gawdawful missiles, even though they "only" accelerate at 90,000 Gs rather than instantly going to near C speeds till hit their targets at ridiculous ranges in only 1 game Turn on a Spaceships scale greater than point blank so they're effectively Warp Missiles. They're much faster than simple Super Missiles.

The whole distance scale is much grater than anything considered in Spaceships.

Impeller wedges are more like a form of Sub-warp with their 500G accelerations than anything else.

[cmdicely]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Honorverse is far beyond TL10. It's just light on laser pistols, probably due to power cell tech or something like that.

No, its light on laser pistols because because their gravity-related technology is so ridiculously advanced that artificial gravity propelled projectile sidearms are so much better than lasers would be in the setting that using power cells to power laser pistols in the setting makes about as much sense as using gunpowder charges to provide the energy to cock hand-fired crossbows makes in our world. (And, apparently, the breakthrough happened early enough that laser pistols were never the main sidearm thing.)

[warellis]

Originally Posted by cmdicely

No, its light on laser pistols because because their gravity-related technology is so ridiculously advanced that artificial gravity propelled projectile sidearms are so much better than lasers would be in the setting that using power cells to power laser pistols in the setting makes about as much sense as using gunpowder charges to provide the energy to cock hand-fired crossbows makes in our world. (And, apparently, the breakthrough happened early enough that laser pistols were never the main sidearm thing.)

Regarding lasers, won't they typically do less damage than an exploding bullet anyway? Frankly a bullet that explodes inside your body sounds more damaging than heating up the outside of the body until something boils.

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Honorverse is far beyond TL10. It's just light on laser pistols, probably due to power cell tech or something like that.

Honorverse grav guns are very much the TL11^ guns of that name in UT. It's a very clear port. I've even heard that David Pulver may even have suggested to David Weber the idea of gravity-based projectile weapons before the whole series started.

They have a form of TL11^ barrier shields. Space stations without impeller walls can put up "spherical sidewalls". They're just relatively weak compared to the regular sidewalls anchored to the impeller wedges.

Grasers, even huge ones appropriate to SM16 or 17 SDs designed with Spaceships should be TL12.

The Grav Lances are UT TL11^ Gravity Beams though not in portable form.

Those gawdawful missiles, even though they "only" accelerate at 90,000 Gs rather than instantly going to near C speeds till hit their targets at ridiculous ranges in only 1 game Turn on a Spaceships scale greater than point blank so they're effectively Warp Missiles. They're much faster than simple Super Missiles.

The whole distance scale is much grater than anything considered in Spaceships.

Impeller wedges are more like a form of Sub-warp with their 500G accelerations than anything else.

You mention impeller wedges are like a form of sub-warp due to their really high accelerations. What's the acceleration threshold in between what is merely a reactionless engine and a sub-warp engine? For instance in the Prince Roger series, written by Weber and John Ringo, the heaviest military starships, carriers, have a maximum acceleration of 164 Gs, cruisers have an acceleration of 450 Gs, and fighters at 800 Gs. As for missiles, cruiser-sized and capital ship "shipkillers" have an acceleration of 3000 Gs, counter-missiles accelerate to 3500 Gs, and fighter-carried shipkillers, which are bigger but shorter-ranged than the shipkillers carried in capital ships, have an acceleration of 4200 Gs.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by warellis

You mention impeller wedges are like a form of sub-warp due to their really high accelerations. What's the acceleration threshold in between what is merely a reactionless engine and a sub-warp engine? .

Literally an order of magnitude or more. It goes from primitive "Dean drive" devices at 0.1 Gs per system at tL9^ or lower to generic "thrusters" that deliver 1 G to 2 Gs for a high performance engines a TL later then to a super reactionless that delivers 50Gs a TL later and then to 500G Sub-warp.

Spaceships scales between TL and whole technologies and doesn't distinguish finely within a given TL/Tech paradigm.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

The Grav Lances are UT TL11^ Gravity Beams though not in portable form.

No they aren't. The 'Grav Lance' is a complete misnomer. The sole function of a grav lance is to disrupt gravetic devices on the target at extremely short range (sidewalls mainly, I forget if they did anything else). You then follow up by firing into their unprotected hull with actual weapons.

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Those gawdawful missiles, even though they "only" accelerate at 90,000 Gs rather than instantly going to near C speeds till hit their targets at ridiculous ranges in only 1 game Turn on a Spaceships scale greater than point blank so they're effectively Warp Missiles. They're much faster than simple Super Missiles.

The whole distance scale is much grater than anything considered in Spaceships.

Of course, said scale you've got to represent the travel time of the missiles, fast as it is, because it's an important aspect of the tactics.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Of course, said scale you've got to represent the travel time of the missiles, fast as it is, because it's an important aspect of the tactics.

No that just determines the range. The travel time is less than a Spaceships Turn at anything like that distance. It's only 3-4 minutes in RW terms.

Missile volley/missile volley s the right structure for Honorverse ship combat.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

No that just determines the range. The travel time is less than a Spaceships Turn at anything like that distance. It's only 3-4 minutes in RW terms.

Missile volley/missile volley s the right structure for Honorverse ship combat.

But the cycle time for the missile launchers is quite a bit less than a minute. When firing all out, you typically have to stack up multiple volleys in flight, which frequently has consequences.

And merging multiple volleys isn't appropriate either. Combining multiple launcher volleys into one is a technical challenge in the setting. Failing to keep volleys discrete would also weaken the shock of missile pods.

Also, relative velocity of combatants is a significant factor in effective missile range, which it wouldn't be for warp missiles.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

But the cycle time for the missile launchers is quite a bit less than a minute. When firing all out, you typically have to stack up multiple volleys in flight, which frequently has consequences.

And merging multiple volleys isn't appropriate either. Combining multiple launcher volleys into one is a technical challenge in the setting. Failing to keep volleys discrete would also weaken the shock of missile pods.

Also, relative velocity of combatants is a significant factor in effective missile range, which it wouldn't be for warp missiles.

These are all issues for an ultimately simulationist Honorverse space combat game which I believe would be impractical to play.

You would also probably find that these initial details would have to be determined randomly as there would be no author to dictate the set-up conditions.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

These are all issues for an ultimately simulationist Honorverse space combat game which I believe would be impractical to play.

If you're not actually going to represent the critical tactical considerations of the setting, what's the point? For an Honorverse game that cares that little about spaceship combat, why bother with a spaceship combat system? Just use Mass Combat or something.

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

You would also probably find that these initial details would have to be determined randomly as there would be no author to dictate the set-up conditions.

GURPS is traditionally played with a GM...

And missile pods, relative velocities, and combatants present tend to be factors influenced by PC decisions, if PCs have an important role in the combat.

[Michael Cule]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

These are all issues for an ultimately simulationist Honorverse space combat game which I believe would be impractical to play.

I couldn't possibly comment but look here.

If you're not going to focus on life in the space navies, where are you going to run an Honorverse game?

Personally, I would say that I have no interest in role-playing someone trapped in a fragile container while people hurl dangerous toys at me. Especially not if the Salamander is anywhere in my chain of command!