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Old 12-30-2020, 01:13 PM   #31
Varyon
 
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Default Re: Cinematic Rocket Delta-V Rules

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Originally Posted by Fred Brackin View Post
I consider artifiical gravity but another trope necessary thing, It's all small potatoes after you've swallowed FTL and non-geriactric realspace propulsion.
The real problem with artificial gravity are the other types of things that seem to follow from such tech - if you don't want antigravity (which has a huge number of planetary applications that would drastically influence the setting), inertial compensators, and gravitic weapons (tractor beams, grav guns, etc), it's hard to fit artificial gravity in without raising some eyebrows.

For my Harpyias setting, I happened to want the aesthetics of fighters that look like they'd be home in atmosphere and transports/capital ships that look like they could serve as naval vessels (using the Hydrodynamic Hull design switch from SS7, although such vessels generally aren't meant to go planetside), naturally with appropriate technobabble explanations as to why these designs are used. This would lend itself to having artificial gravity, but because I didn't want the add-on effects of that (and the setting already rather strains the number of applications of a single miracle material), I decided most of the larger vessels either accept that they'll be spending some time on the float or pair up and use spin tethers (smaller vessels are typically relatively short-ranged, so their crew accept they'll be without gravity at least until they return to their mothership). Space habitats typically use more traditional spin gravity.
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Old 12-30-2020, 01:15 PM   #32
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Default Re: Cinematic Rocket Delta-V Rules

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Originally Posted by Fred Brackin View Post
Well, maybe after you've made the irrational (but trope-necessary) decison to have crews of organic beings.

I consider artifiical gravity but another trope necessary thing, It's all small potatoes after you've swallowed FTL and non-geriactric realspace propulsion.

I disagree about blink-warp though. I try and visualize how a blink-warp ship interacts with the normal universe and it's all gibberish.
Yeah, you've said that in the past.

Some sort of worm-hole drive or jump-gate system probably makes more sense, from the standpoint of what we currently understand about physics.

The thing is, RPGs are more about telling stories than modeling reality, and worm-hole drives or jump-gates really eliminate a lot of fun plot options.

You don't have to travel through much space with a jump-drive, and since every single jump-gate is a travel bottleneck, easily controlled, then space piracy can never really be a thing.

I don't think those make for desirable trade-offs.

As for the OPs original thoughts (to drag this, kicking and screaming, back on topic), I think an Epstein Drive would fit the bill, but would introduce the WMD kinetic-kill issue that could glitch the setting in ways both large and small.
A pseudo-velocity drive such as a stutter-warp with no super-luminal threshold, combined with a need to discharge coils for a day, for every couple thousand or so light-seconds traveled, would do the trick.
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Old 12-30-2020, 01:34 PM   #33
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Default Re: Cinematic Rocket Delta-V Rules

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Originally Posted by acrosome View Post

(SNIP)

One of my long-term projects is making a 2D projection of a "subway map" style of near star map, based upon an 8 light year jump limit, and leaving all of the red dwarfs and whatever brown dwarfs I could find info on in place. It is definitely more complex than 2300AD's map, but still results in interesting choke points. They are just on a larger scale than in 2300AD, where every route is essentially linear. And it still has lots of obscure and remote systems to hide in, and doesn't orphan any interesting systems (IIRC Fomalhaut is one example, as anything shorter leaves it inaccessible). There are numerous spots where a cluster of systems is only accessible to the rest of the map through one of them, for example. And there is a Great Ring Route that includes Sol. It's turning out nicely.

I was frankly surprised that nobody seems to have done it before. I'm using Astrosynthesis and some data from the Lair of Evil Doctor Ganymede. The hard part is getting it into a 2D display. It would be nice if I could find software that would spit out a subway map automagically, but I can't, so I'm doing it by hand.
That seems like a lot of work, yeah.

I looked at the 3D rotatable chview maps put together by some C.J. Cherryh fans, a long time ago, and that works pretty well.
http://members.nova.org/~sol/chview/

Winchell Chung lists several others:
http://www.projectrho.com/public_htm...s/software.php

Were I to ever get a group together that wanted me to set up an interstellar game (which I probably won't, since one of my players is doing that for the next campaign we play...), I'd probably pick one of those.

I do like the notion of a "subway map," though, as an easy reference that doesn't require much in the way of sophisticated software.
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Old 12-30-2020, 01:43 PM   #34
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Default Re: Cinematic Rocket Delta-V Rules

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Originally Posted by tshiggins View Post
Yeah, you've said that in the past.


You don't have to travel through much space with a jump-drive, and since every single jump-gate is a travel bottleneck, easily controlled, then space piracy can never really be a thing.
Well if we're going to talk about things I've said before that leads to the system I used in The Gloria Monday series of games. The Gloria Monday was the PC ship in the first one and a different group flew around space in the Tuesday Weld. The Wednesday Addams waits in the wings.

In those games "jumplines" existed between stars but you could use the line anywhwere over a distance of an AU or more. The two linked stars could be within 3.3 parsecs x their combined masses in "Sols".

Distances between habitable worlds were realistic and no known worlds had direct connections. A typical route required 3-5 jumps and the distances involved with the middle stars in the route ran to .3 AU or so. Only the routes between the most populous and powerful planets would be completely patrolled. Usually "in-between" star systems were effectively wilderness.

I also set the campaign in a frontier sector with lightly settled planets that had as few as 50,000 people and only saw a ship every 3 or 4 weeks.

The PC ships were built with Ve2 and only cost about a million (judicious use of superscince and keeping the actual size low) or so new and they weren't new. :)
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Old 12-30-2020, 01:44 PM   #35
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Default Re: Cinematic Rocket Delta-V Rules

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Originally Posted by tshiggins View Post
That seems like a lot of work, yeah.

I looked at the 3D rotatable chview maps put together by some C.J. Cherryh fans, a long time ago, and that works pretty well.
http://members.nova.org/~sol/chview/

Winchell Chung lists several others:
http://www.projectrho.com/public_htm...s/software.php

Were I to ever get a group together that wanted me to set up an interstellar game (which I probably won't, since one of my players is doing that for the next campaign we play...), I'd probably pick one of those.

I do like the notion of a "subway map," though, as an easy reference that doesn't require much in the way of sophisticated software.
Yes, Astrosynthesis will make any 3D map you want, and you can even generate jump routes of arbitrary length. But having to boot your computer every time the party wants to travel is onerous, thus my desire for a 2D subway map.
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Old 12-30-2020, 01:54 PM   #36
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Default Re: Cinematic Rocket Delta-V Rules

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Originally Posted by acrosome View Post
Yes, Astrosynthesis will make any 3D map you want, and you can even generate jump routes of arbitrary length. But having to boot your computer every time the party wants to travel is onerous, thus my desire for a 2D subway map.
I could definitely see that. :)

Fortunately, I'm driving a beast of a machine, so it probably wouldn't be quite so bad. Maybe only every third or fourth jump. :p
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Old 12-30-2020, 02:15 PM   #37
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Default Re: Cinematic Rocket Delta-V Rules

An option I considered for proper space opera travel was something like:
  1. All long-distance travel is via warp drives. Warp drives don't function very near planets (say, 10 diameters or so), and their speed depends on local gravity, so it's fast sublight travel in the inner system, becomes ftl between stars.
  2. Ships in warp are surrounded by a warp bubble (10x ship diameter or something), which significantly protects from long range fire. Warp bubbles can merge, resulting in short range exchanges of fire or even boarding actions.
  3. Warp bubbles cause localized adjustments in the laws of physics that prevent inconvenient technology from working, such as nuclear weapons.
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Old 12-31-2020, 11:25 PM   #38
GURPS Fox
 
Join Date: Jun 2020
Default Re: Cinematic Rocket Delta-V Rules

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Originally Posted by Varyon View Post
The real problem with artificial gravity are the other types of things that seem to follow from such tech - if you don't want antigravity (which has a huge number of planetary applications that would drastically influence the setting), inertial compensators, and gravitic weapons (tractor beams, grav guns, etc), it's hard to fit artificial gravity in without raising some eyebrows.

For my Harpyias setting, I happened to want the aesthetics of fighters that look like they'd be home in atmosphere and transports/capital ships that look like they could serve as naval vessels (using the Hydrodynamic Hull design switch from SS7, although such vessels generally aren't meant to go planetside), naturally with appropriate technobabble explanations as to why these designs are used. This would lend itself to having artificial gravity, but because I didn't want the add-on effects of that (and the setting already rather strains the number of applications of a single miracle material), I decided most of the larger vessels either accept that they'll be spending some time on the float or pair up and use spin tethers (smaller vessels are typically relatively short-ranged, so their crew accept they'll be without gravity at least until they return to their mothership). Space habitats typically use more traditional spin gravity.
Well, in my setting, AG is harder to get than it looks while Inertia Dampening is easier (similar to Babylon 5, where Earth has been working on AG tech for decades and didn't get AG until the Interstellar Alliance gave them the tech). All ships and orbital stations require spin-gravity but planetoid/planetary installations (i.e. significantly large asteroids, various moons in the solar system, Mars, the like) have a very inefficient form of AG tech that simply outdoes the energy budget of pretty much anything in the solar system.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Anthony View Post
An option I considered for proper space opera travel was something like:
  1. All long-distance travel is via warp drives. Warp drives don't function very near planets (say, 10 diameters or so), and their speed depends on local gravity, so it's fast sublight travel in the inner system, becomes ftl between stars.
  2. Ships in warp are surrounded by a warp bubble (10x ship diameter or something), which significantly protects from long range fire. Warp bubbles can merge, resulting in short range exchanges of fire or even boarding actions.
  3. Warp bubbles cause localized adjustments in the laws of physics that prevent inconvenient technology from working, such as nuclear weapons.
Well, Interplanetary Drives and large gravity wells don't like each other. Current idea is that the 'limit' for IP drives is over 1.2 times the distance between Earth and the Earth-Luna L2 Lagrange point...

So, 'cinematic' rules are basically arbitrary then?
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Old 01-01-2021, 02:10 AM   #39
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Default Re: Cinematic Rocket Delta-V Rules

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Originally Posted by GURPS Fox View Post

(SNIP)

So, 'cinematic' rules are basically arbitrary then?
Yeah, pretty much.

Figure out what works best for the type of campaign you want to run and the sorts of things you want the characters to do, as well as (probably even more importantly...) the stuff you don't want them to do.

Once you've done that, backwards-engineer something to suit.

G:Space has enough options that you can usually find something pretty close, and then tweak it to suit.
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Old 01-01-2021, 11:55 AM   #40
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Default Re: Cinematic Rocket Delta-V Rules

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Originally Posted by GURPS Fox View Post
So, 'cinematic' rules are basically arbitrary then?
Cinematic rules do whatever is required to make the plot work, so yes, pretty arbitrary.
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