[Spaceships] getting into orbit without superscience?

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by scc

It's a sacred cow of space gaming for some reason

It lets PCs leave planets where they've made themselves unpopular. It lets them do smuggling, gun-running, mercenary transport and all kinds of other illegal and lucrative things. It lets the players pretend that the characters are independent of society. It also lets the GM create (or buy) scenarios that are fairly independent of the surrounding society.

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by scc

It's a sacred cow of space gaming for some reason

Fair enough, but the same is true of superscience means of getting from ground to orbit, and FTL travel.

The OP asked about getting into orbit without superscience, and never mentioned interstellar tramp traders. Let's not force-feed them sacred beef off a different menu.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Agemegos

Fair enough, but the same is true of superscience means of getting from ground to orbit, and FTL travel.

People expect a space game to have scenes in space. Certainly you can run a futuristic/SF game with more realistic space infrastructure, but it largely removes any agency on the part of the players for anything happening in actual space. All that is closely controlled by the people who own the infrastructure, who have to be good at it or it would've already collapsed, and *anywhere* well regulated by any competent authority doesn't present very many adventure opportunities. That doesn't mean you can't run a fine game where everything interesting happens on planetary surfaces, or even with no PC space travel at all, it just won't be thought of as a "space" game by most players.

[ericbsmith]

Originally Posted by Agemegos

But PCs in a sci-fi game no more need to be the crew of a tramp starship than PCs in a modern game need to be commercial aircrew.

Originally Posted by scc

It's a sacred cow of space gaming for some reason

If the players have no ability to travel through space on their own then there's not much use in making it a "space" game instead of a single-planet sci-fi campaign. There are some games set in such a setting that isn't Earth, but for the most part it really doesn't matter if you make the setting Earth, Alpha Centauri III, or anywhere else if it's going to be a single planet game - with the exception of a new colony/exploration setting. The larger galaxy, space travel, or any discussion of how people get to orbit or travel between stars no longer really matters when the PCs can't do it themselves.

It also just doesn't feel the same if the PCs are whisking around the galaxy on commercial transports. They might as well be hopping a plane from Paris to Shanghai for all the difference it makes. At that point you might as well just set it on Earth to make the fictional background easier to deal with.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Gnaskar

If it wasn't clear, it was brought in with the colony ship,


First, it doesn't need a boathull. Very few sea planes use them. Pontoons or hydrofoils would be plenty good enough, and those can be retracted in flight. Secondly, a runway requires effort at the colony. rs.

Ah, apologies. It was not clear that the "they" who brought in the space elevator were the colonists and not the visiting PCs. It does imply a big colony ship.

For the next part I may be being technical but all "seaplanes" use boathulls. If it uses pontoons it's a "float plane". No real world aircraft use hydrofoils and all hydrofoils end up with their hulls in the water below a certain speed. It is an interesting idea for making water takeoffs and landing potentially easier and retrtactable hydrofoils would be much easier than retractible pontoons.

Still, there's that landing strip. The Shuttle made do with 15,000 feet of concrete and that's a pretty low bar for a colony to meet. That big colony ship could bring bags of concrete mix easier than it could a space elevator.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Gnaskar

If you want a universe where tramp freighters make sense, you definitively want to have core worlds that make cutting edge high tech colony gear that needs to be transported to worlds which don't have the infrastructure to support megafreighters or regular visits by liners.

I don't know why people think tramp freight only can exist to support isolated backwater planets. Tramp freight exists today (albeit probably mostly in a very corporate sense) and had a great presence in the 20th century - not really a time when the seas were full of neglected ports.

All a tramp freighter needs is clients who need a ship available on a schedule that isn't filled by an available liner. There could be billions of tons of megahauler liners right there and still be work for a tramp freighter.

Now, one could say that developed worlds are just so big that every possible route among them would have a completely sufficient liner schedule. That might be realistic...but it's more so if the freight liners are relatively small and thus more numerous.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by malloyd

People expect a space game to have scenes in space. Certainly you can run a futuristic/SF game with more realistic space infrastructure, but it largely removes any agency on the part of the players for anything happening in actual space. All that is closely controlled by the people who own the infrastructure, who have to be good at it or it would've already collapsed, and *anywhere* well regulated by any competent authority doesn't present very many adventure opportunities. That doesn't mean you can't run a fine game where everything interesting happens on planetary surfaces, or even with no PC space travel at all, it just won't be thought of as a "space" game by most players.

The Player Characters need not be ship crew to have adventures in space. They could be passengers who need to assist in thwarting would-be hijackers, try to figure out whodunnit when another passenger (or member of the crew) winds up murdered, have to keep other passengers calm and lend their own abilities to help the ship limp home (or get to an escape pod) after an accident, etc. They may well travel between exotic locales - including low-gravity asteroid colonies (like Ceres in The Expanse) - in pursuit of the plot, getting there using existing infrastructure rather than with their own spacecraft. Of course, even if they are crew, there's no reason you couldn't have them park their ship in orbit, use existing infrastructure to come down to the surface to have planetary adventures, then use that infrastructure to get back up to their ship so they can depart and have space adventures, and so forth. It might also be possible to have their "mothership" have expendable shuttles, that use soft landing systems to land on the planet, then a multistage design to get back up into orbit and rendezvous with the parked ship. A space-seaplane is probably easier to design if you just leave the pontoons behind. That can get you the ability to land on and get back off of un(der)developed planets without superscience, I feel, although you probably can't carry very many of such shuttles, so you'll have to get back to civilization once you run out (of course, you probably have to return frequently anyway, to keep topped up on your reaction mass).

[Gnaskar]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

I don't know why people think tramp freight only can exist to support isolated backwater planets. Tramp freight exists today (albeit probably mostly in a very corporate sense) and had a great presence in the 20th century - not really a time when the seas were full of neglected ports.

Tramp freight today exists as ships owned by megacorporations who's contracts are decided by the central corporation, and who's crew have no freedom to chose clients and no personal stake in the game. It's not an exciting setting to game in.

When we talk about tramp freighters, we're talking about the Rocinante, the Serenity or the Falcon, not just about any old freighter without a fixed route.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

For the next part I may be being technical but all "seaplanes" use boathulls. If it uses pontoons it's a "float plane".

As far as wikipedia knows, if you want to specify a plane with a boat hull that's a flying boat. If you just call it a seaplane you are either specifically indicating a floatplane (reported UK usage) or not indicating whether you mean a floatplane or a flying boat (reported US usage, and the usage I'm familiar with).

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Gnaskar

Tramp freight today exists as ships owned by megacorporations who's contracts are decided by the central corporation, and who's crew have no freedom to chose clients and no personal stake in the game. It's not an exciting setting to game in.

When we talk about tramp freighters, we're talking about the Rocinante, the Serenity or the Falcon, not just about any old freighter without a fixed route.

Sure, but the difference there isn't the nature of tramp freight, it's the general corporatization of the global economy.