Need Help on "Semi-Hard" Classic SF Spaceship Design

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

You could use hot reactionless drives. They could also consume fuel, just not nearly as much as would account for reaction mass.

This the way to go, either that or assuming super-efficient fuel which takes up far less space and provides far more delta-v than in GURPS Spaceships.

My main problems are that per GURPS Spaceships the smaller ships don't have the speed or endurance to do what they are described as doing in the books. Big ships aren't as much of a problem.

I will go with reactionless drives with a single fuel tank as homage to the idea that they use reaction mass.

I've got the ambulance ship Rhabwar statted out. It works pretty well using the Spaceship rules with some tweaks. I've also created some of the more unusual Federation ships as potential "victims" and allies.

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

These assumptions are generally true for a lot of sf. Presumably because the authors felt that ship drives should have destructive plumes or wash and that ships should consume fuel, but didn't do any math.

This. James White had some very cool ideas, but no scientific background. It's also obvious that he didn't keep notes on the universe and characters he created so there's lack of continuity from book to book.

If there's interest in a fan-based SG GURPS supplement, I can create a dedicated thread for it.