Is achievingorbit that easy?

[jacobmuller]

Originally Posted by Langy

What type of drive did you stick in the little guy? What TL is it? Both of those are rather important questions.

Funnily enough, neither are relevant. They only alter cost and time taken to achieve orbit, and whether you need fuel or power plants...
It's all just guesswork for SM+3 but the same ratios apply as if it were an SM+6 design using SM+5 subsystems for drive (plus lots more passengers).

What befuddled me was, according to the numbers I played with, I could build it as 53% fuel tankage, 2/3g of thrust from a subsystem HEDM rocket and fly to orbit in something like 4 minutes? And there'd be fuel to spare.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by jacobmuller

What befuddled me was, according to the numbers I played with, I could build it as 53% fuel tankage, 2/3g of thrust from a subsystem HEDM rocket and fly to orbit in something like 4 minutes? And there'd be fuel to spare.

I think you've either misread what orbital velocity is or simply broken the system by trying to stretch it too far.

To reach orbital velocity in 2 minutes you'd need to pull a steady 6 Gs and wings don't change that.

[jacobmuller]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

I think you've either misread what orbital velocity is or simply broken the system by trying to stretch it too far.

I've definitely broken the rules by going below SM+5, but it was fun, and I got a better grasp of the rules and a simple TL9 space shuttle
(bumping the scale up to SM+6 would allow 2 crew, 10 passengers and 1.7ton cargo and be within RAW - don't know if it'd be econonical but that's a different thread).

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by jacobmuller

What befuddled me was, according to the numbers I played with, I could build it as 53% fuel tankage, 2/3g of thrust from a subsystem HEDM rocket and fly to orbit in something like 4 minutes? And there'd be fuel to spare.

Aha. We now see. Yes, if you have HEDM rockets, getting into orbit is trivial. Sadly, we don't have HEDM rockets today, nor do they look all that likely in the near future.

[thtraveller]

Originally Posted by jacobmuller

What befuddled me was, according to the numbers I played with, I could build it as 53% fuel tankage, 2/3g of thrust from a subsystem HEDM rocket and fly to orbit in something like 4 minutes? And there'd be fuel to spare.

You can create a standard rocket with 45% fuel and a HEDM drive in G:Spaceships that makes orbit. It's the HEDM bit that makes it "easy". Or you can do it with an external pulsed plasma (Orion) drive with only 10% fuel.

[Crakkerjakk]

Originally Posted by thtraveller

Or you can do it with an external pulsed plasma (Orion) drive with only 10% fuel.

TL 7 interplanetary flight, baby!