[Spaceships] of the Solar Patrol

[Quadrone]

The recently published Tales of the Solar Patrol has drawn me out of lurker-dom and into actually posting on these forums, which I have been anonymously following for quite some time. (If you haven't bought that PDF yet and have any interest in pulp sci-fi, click on that link pronto - you won't be disappointed.)

As was mentioned in a previous thread on the setting, GURPS Spaceships write-ups for the various ships would make a fine addition to Tales of the Solar Patrol. At first glance, I thought it would be a fairly simple affair. After all, the ships are described in a fair amount of detail. I realized that matters were much more complicated when I looked at it more closely, however.

Hence this thread, in which I will create conversions (and possibly some new designs) and discuss my thinking along the way. Although my enthusiasm for all things GURPS is boundless, I don't have a lot of practical experience yet, so feedback would be appreciated.

Now, with all that intro out of the way, I will proceed to the first step - figuring out workable stats for the miraculous Electron Drive. One caveat: I realize that the Tales of the Solar Patrol rules were not written with hard realism in mind - ships move "at the speed of plot", etc. Still, I like a bit more crunchiness in my games, so I'm shooting for a middle ground between total hand waving and meticulously plotting out Hohmann transfer orbits, while still staying as close as possible to the feel of the setting.

OK, on to the Electron Drive. The text is wildly contradictory regarding its specifications. On the one hand, it claims a maximum velocity of .1c with 1-2G acceleration. I checked the travel times in Tales of the Solar Patrol against the equations and distances listed on pp.39-40 of GURPS Spaceships - results are wildly different. At .1c, even the maximum distance to Jupiter could be covered in under 4 days (I will admit that I did some simplification in my calculations and assumed straight line minimum and maximum distances between planets, not hyperbolic transfer orbits).

It seems to me that the travel times listed are more integral to the setting - they give the Solar System a more immense, isolated feel. OK, some more playing with numbers revealed an average velocity, for the travel times given, of .0008c. All right, let's round that off to .001c. Some more number crunching gives us (roughly) the following travel times:

Earth to Mercury: 4 - 8 days
Earth to Venus: 2 - 10 days
Earth to Mars: 3 - 15 days
Earth to Belt: 10 - 21 days
Earth to Jupiter: 24 - 36 days

Not too bad. On average, these travel times are within about 25% of the values given in the book. The discrepancy could be accounted for by more realistic transfer orbits. Not sure which set of numbers I'll use - either seems reasonable to me. Perhaps a very good Astronavigation roll could allow the crew to pick the more favorable travel time.

The tables give the acceleration of various vessels 1-2 G acceleration. That seems a bit low, given that the text says that an Electron Drive ship can reach maximum velocity within an hour. Another quick calculation reveals that to hit even .001c in an hour would require an acceleration of 8.3G. Again, let's round it to 10G for neatness' sake.

Finally, some of the spacecraft seem to have half the performance of others . It would make the most sense to assume that the difference is 1 vs. 2 engines.

Taking all this into account gives the following:
Electron Drive (TL 6+3^)[Rear!]: Each engine gives 5G acceleration, with a maximum speed of .0005c. Performance can be enhanced as per p. 32 of Tales of the Solar Patrol.
Cost: Until I analyze the costs of the example ships more closely, I'm going with the assumption that the cost is the same as for the Standard Reactionless Drive.

As long as I'm at it, I'll throw in my guess at what the Tesla Coils are like. Treat them as a Total Conversion Power Plant, with the added note that they are ineffective more than 6 AU from the sun.

MORE TO COME