Combining Spaceships and GURPS Space Catapult Launch

[Riandor Na'Eris]

Originally Posted by Kale

To be clear here, are the mass drivers 'shooting' the ships into space, or generating some kind of continuous beam that the ships 'ride'?

If it's 'shooting', then the ships will need some way to slow down and stop at the end of the trip. This means the 'shooting' technique saves them half the fuel it would normally take to get somewhere, and possibly a fair bit of time if the initial acceleration is good.

If it is beam riding, then it is much the same situation, but instead of getting all the speed up front in one burst, the ship instead receives constant acceleration as long as it is traveling within a beam. It would still need fuel to stop, or another beam projector pointing the other way would have to slow them down.

The Mass Driver accelerate the ship which use another Mass Driver to decelerate too, technically reducing the need for fuel tanks.
This is treated in GURPS Space 4th Edition as Catapult Launcher. Of Course, Space give it a non numerical treatment.