[Spaceships] Reactionless Drives, Pseudovelocity, and NOT breaking a setting (much)

[lwcamp]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

But the other idea I had is some sort of 'bleed over' effect, such that when one pushes away from a gravitational well, some of the work the drive performs behaves as if the drive is 'pushing' against the planet, thus spending energy on reducing/compensating real downward velocity. Sort of like the Spooky Traction At A Distance Drive. Of course, this still leaves the ability to theoretically get real velocity by matching with a big celestial body on a fast orbit elsewhere, but that seems highly impractical. Also, maybe some sort of bleed-over that makes real velocity gradually match that of a close big body while the drive is active (again, not a panacea). Are these two bleed-overs useful / subtly harmful / what else can be said about these two ideas?

Warp out to go find a binary pulsar (not hard, they broadcast their location far and wide). Match speed with one of the neutron stars. Now warp back to your target and slam into it at relativistic speeds.

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Also, what are the consequences of the ability to break conservation of angular momentum with TL^ drives?

I haven't been sufficiently clever to figure out game-breaking applications. Energy is conserved, linear momentum is conserved, so you don't get cheap and easy r-bombs. It makes station-keeping a bit easier.

Luke