[Space] Adapting "Honorverse" Concepts to GURPS

[DaltonS]

Wow! I've never got such a response from new topic before. Frankly, adapting all the "Honorverse" tech to GURPS would be a major project in itself. I was more interested in defining the cosmology and converting the grav/hyper drive tech so that a GURPS Space campaign could be played in an Honor Harrington style universe. Below are the hyperlimits calculated for main sequence stars from GURPS Space.

Stellar Hyperlimit|Stellar Hyperlimit|Stellar Hyperlimit
Type Mass (c-sec) |Type Mass (c-sec) |Type Mass (c-sec)
 A5  2.00  2,454  | F7  1.25  1,534  | K5  0.65   798
 A6  1.90  2,331  | F8  1.20  1,472  | K6  0.60   736
 A7  1.80  2,209  | F9  1.15  1,411  | K8  0.55   675
 A8  1.75  2,147  | G0  1.10  1,350  | M0  0.50   614
 A9  1.70  2,086  | G1  1.05  1,288  | M1  0.45   552
 F0  1.60  1,963  | G2  1.00  1,227  | M2  0.40   491
 F1  1.55  1,902  | G4  0.95  1,166  | M3  0.35   429
 F2  1.50  1,841  | G6  0.90  1,104  | M4  0.30   368
 F3  1.45  1,779  | G8  0.85  1,043  | M4  0.25   307
 F4  1.40  1,718  | K0  0.80   982   | M5  0.20   245
 F5  1.35  1,656  | K2  0.75   920   | M6  0.15   184
 F6  1.30  1,595  | K4  0.70   859   | M7  0.10   123

There are a few elements about David Weber's Honorverse tech that I find a bit ... odd.

Impeller Drive - This is essentially a gravitational bootstrap drive that causes the ship to fall into an artificial gravity well that moves with the ship. This leads to a couple of questions:

1. Why are inertial compensators needed? If the ship is falling into a gravity well, the hull's contents should fall at the same rate.
2. Why would a smaller ship have a greater maximum acceleration than a larger one? If anything, a larger drive should create a stronger gravity well and thus a higher acceleration.

The answer to both questions could involve tidal forces exerted on the hull. The main acceleration vector would be along the central axis of the wedge, with off-center tidal forces increasing on the hull and its contents proportionally to the distance from this axis and the magnitude of the acceleration. Thus stress on the hull would be determined by the ship's displacement and design (a merchant vessel would be spherical to maximize cargo volume, while a warship would be an elongated cylinder to minimize the mean radius being stressed). Therefore a larger (or fatter) ship would have a lower maximum acceleration to partially compensate for tidal stress on the hull, with inertial compensators protecting the interior.

Optional Ship Systems: Maximum military acceleration of a Superwarp Drive should be (600 - SM×10) Gs with a military grade (grav) compensator, or half that with a civilian grade one (half price). Note that maximum routine (safe) accelerations should be 80% this; for 81%-90%, do an "Engineering (Gravitics)" skill once per game day to determine system failure, while for 91%-100% do the roll once per game hour. If the compensator fails, the crew dies.
The drive itself should be divided into 2 half systems split between front and rear hull sections. These are the beta nodes: to add alpha nodes for "grav sail" option (10× normal acceleration in a grav wave), increase cost and reduce thrust by 1/3 (to keep the same thrust, use two small systems in each hull section rather than a half system, with total drive cost increasing by 50%). Working the "partial drive field" option seems a bit tricky.

Dalton “who has issues with the Honorverse tech sequence too” Spence