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Fred's Propulsion Brainstorming

Fred

Retired Staff
Wes had a few idle thoughts on propulsion systems and seemed tied at disposing of either CFS or Fold... with a penchant for going after a mean that would avoid superluminal combat.

The following include thoughts I had on the topic.

Sublight propulsion:
One flaw I've found with our current engine arrangement and the speed scale we use, is that the sublight speeds we can reach make the use of most spatial objects somewhat redundant.

First example: Earth's diameter is roughly 12 500km and the Luna's diameter is about 3 500km. The distance between the Earth and its moon is roughly 1 light second (300 000km).

If we go around 0.3c (~100 000 kps), we clear the distance around the Earth and Luna in 3 seconds. The circumference of Luna's orbit around Earth is ~450 000km, making it so that we could go around a full orbit in 5 seconds. Even going at a measly 0.1c, we'd cross the distance between planet and moon in 10 seconds, and cover the moon's orbit in 15 seconds.

Second example: Jupiter's a gas giant and the largest planet in the Solar system, so, it serves as a good opposite benchmark to Earth.

Jupiter has a diameter of ~140 000km.

Callisto is the furthest moon from Jupiter, having a diameter of ~4800km and it orbits ~1 900 000km away from Jupiter.

So, with the above figures, one could go from Jupiter to Callisto, at 0.3c (100 000kps), in 19 seconds. Following Callisto's orbit would take, at 0.3c, around a minute.

So, at 0.1c, you'd cover the distance between Jupiter and Callisto in one minute, and would make Callisto's orbit in 3 minutes.

The above examples are to illustrate how I've felt, for awhile now, that our current sublight speeds have made planetary bodies and other obstacles in space mostly irrelevant in space combat ~ especially when we boost speed - that can cut the above travel times by 2 or 3.

Planet-sizes themselves don't make for such daunting obstacles... and SARP sensors - unless you tell me otherwise - seem like they could easily pick up enemy ship presence behind obstacles.

Finally, even going at 0.1c (which is really fast close to a planetary body), that sort of speed makes navigating through an obstacle course 'quickly' (like the asteroid field you'd find as a ring around a planet) pretty much an impossibility.

* * *

In that light, we probably don't really need to do any superluminal maneuvers - in fact, high-sublight speed maneuvers should be generally more than fast enough to avoid any kinds of dangers offered - even the blast zone of aetheric shock arrays (which goes toward a target at 1c, like a beam) if delay-to-target allows.

That said, any such maneuver should probably not be taken lightly, when you think about it, and perhaps would require substancial ship resources. How much? I'm not going to delve into that - but I figure that ship captain's should typically only think of resorting to such a risk on the chance of their vessel being in the line of a crippling or fatal attack.

Losing shields and weapon power, for example, is better than getting two torpedoes in the kisser and being destroyed, but no one would spam sublight tactical jumps if it compromises their combat ability too much.

If you consider the power drain having engines going full tilt would mean... it could motivate why a ship going to high sublight speeds (when traveling between planets) wouldn't have their weapon systems and shields active for starship combat and would need to slow down to engage into combat (not to mention how most weapons fire at 1c or less). Anyhow, just food for thought.

* * *

Faster-than-light propulsion:
I've had two frustrations with SARP engines.

The first, is how common the CFS+Fold drive combination is. Personally, I've never liked how the two systems needed to be separate.

The second, is how multi-purpose CFS is. It feels too much like KFY ships put all their eggs in the same basket. As a GM, I have trouble with it because: 1- I feel it's overpowered; 2- Damage the CFS and you lose your shields, FTL propulsion, FTL comm, scalar protection and even some combat capabilities.

That's why I personally would like to make those functions separate. As a GM, it gives me more stuff to damage, more things for my PC crews to fix, without necessarily crippling a too major part of the ship (not that losing a part of that isn't bad already, but losing all of those at once is disastrous!).

Aside from that...

On the CDD vs. Fold issue, I'll admit that I prefer CDD because it involves a straightforward "Start at Point A and translate at this speed to Point B". It allows for interceptions, allows for contact with space phenomenon and be able to stop and change course.

Fold is more like "Start at Point A, vanish for awhile and reappear at Point B". You might have a beef against wormhole technology... but as far as I'm concerned this is exactly the same principle, if not technology. Put that way, you must be able to see how the actual methodology is the same.

This said, there are a few things which would be important to take into account:

~ How to travel inside a star system?
Even going at 0.9c, it's going to take really long to travel any significant distances. In 9 minutes 12 seconds you can transit from Earth to our Sun, which isn't bad, but going out of the Solar System, beyond 97 AU away to the dwarf planet Eris, would take ~15 hours and going beyond the Oort Cloud (50 000AU distant) would be a lot more unfeasible at about 312 days.

The existence of Oort cloud-like phenomenon in about every star system implicates that it would not be something our current fold drives could go through (they can't go through nebulaes, and an Oort Cloud poses similar hazards I think).

Given that, we probably need an FTL method of getting by inside a star system, without involving the long travel times sublight would implicate, while giving sublight propulsion some viability closer to planets and not encouraging superluminal maneuvers in combat.

~ How to travel from a star system to another?
Given what I mentioned before... I personally would think that what we end up needing is a 'in-system warp' and a 'out-system warp' (both are stand-in temporary names until we find something better, if applicable).

The way I'd suggest working with the 'in-system warp' is so that usually operating it results in requiring most of a ship's power to be devoted to the FTL engines so to charge them briefly.

That way you could motivate their very brief use, in combat, to decrease shield and weapon power in order to 'grease' space. That done, it could explain how our short sublight tactical jumps would work.

In non-combat circumstances, you could use them to charge up for a longer time (usually time a ship in combat could ill-afford in combat... especially with interdiction fields active) and then make transit between planets.

If an 'in-system warp' is done at a speed of 500c, it crosses 1 AU in a second. At 20 000c, you cross 40 AU per second.

Do you understand what this means? It means that you could very well have ships do in-system warps inside a star system and effectively nearly-instantly appear at their destination point... preserving your 'flash-and-appear' fold imagery even with CDD-style FTL.

Reaching beyond the Oort Cloud like Sol's would take at 20 000c... 1250 seconds, which is nearly twenty-one minutes. Once beyond a system's Oort Cloud, you could motivate going for a 'out-system warp' which would go much faster following our speed scale for fold system, though with the same CDD-style movement.

Picture this:

An invading Mishhu fleet approached a star system at inter-stellar speed and arrive at the rim of the system, where they assemble their fleet. From that point, it takes them some time to organize themselves on arrival and charge the in-system warp needed to reach the inside the system to the planets they desire to attack, where their battlepods are the most useful.

The system's rim becomes a key point where reinforcements can come in from other locations and defenses for the star system can be established such as a star fortress and such. Battles can be waged there, in deep space, and the battle lines held. After all, any enemy formation charging for a in-system warp to jump inside the star system would likely have minimal defenses so it's definitely risky.

If your rim defense falls, then the enemy ships have warped into the system to the planets inside the rim, along with the installations nestled next to them. This is the point where fortifications around planets come into play (probably insufficient to hold of enemy ships, but perhaps essential to stall for time before allied ship can come to help). Any ships held into reserves can probably also come into play then, 'in-system warping' (maybe just saying 'leaping' or 'jumping' would be less cumbersome).

The above text in the quote box could very well present very good explanation for tactics used in system-fleet warfare given that consideration for FTL drives.

It explains why star fortresses could be outside a system, explains what sort of role fortifications around planets could have, covers how one could handle fleet warfare outside a system system (with the possibility of reinforcements being able to 'out-system warp' there in time.

It could also cover how an enemy could keep one part of his attacking fleet in reserve and protect it to warp inside the system's Oort cloud, with the task of interceptors and gunships to strike behind enemy lines at those more vulnerable vessels (especially carriers and battleships) before they can go in to attack the planetary installations. If you consider that, it makes the smaller gunships and fleet escorts a LOT more important.

It gives a reason for ships to be left to guard inside a system, gives carriers and battleships a more solid role in battle in regards of confronting and defeating fortifications (perhaps something a destroyer or gunship would have a much tougher time with). In-system defending ships could have the suspenseful task of waiting for 'leaks' in their side's outer rim defense, then warp to the location and try to put down the vessels that snuck through.

For retreats, these could work fairly well too. Inside a system, you'd either need to super-charge your FTL unit to leap out beyond the Oort cloud, or if pursued you wouldn't have the time to charge so you'd need to do a retreat at inter-planetary FTL speeds until you got past the Oort cloud, upon which point you'd be able to charge your FTL propulsion for inter-stellar speeds when pursuit broke off.

If you're already out of the system's rim, then, it's somewhat simpler. You just charge and warp out at intra-stellar FTL speed if you can afford the wait, or go at intra-system FTL speeds until you can get the room to go to intra-stellar speeds.

* * *

An additional point is how we could work on it to make categories on the FTL travel that's available in SARP. I hear Soresu often exclaim: "Different races might have different technologies!"

The point is pretty much to allow variety that would outline foreign differences in designs while ultimately keeping it balanced.

I'm going to base it on the following principles:
- The sublight, intra-planetary and intra-stellar speed scales.
- The 'translation' and the 'teleportation'

What I suggested above involved:
- sublight speed that was a translation.
- intra-planetary speed that was a translation, but actually so fast it could pass itself out as teleportation.
- intra-stellar speed that would be a translation.

If we consider other things in the setting:
- Mindy teleporter devices could be a form of sublight teleportation movement.
- Wormhole generators could very well be acceptable in that they are a form of intra-stellar teleportation.

Imagery would be up to each system, but we'd have a handy baseline that would promote a degree of variety while keeping things balanced to a degree. In such a light, creating new kinds of propulsion technology for various races could be fine.

* * *

Finally, please note that all of the above was done in response to Wes wanting to make changes. This is not a push for a retcon or anything. My own motives are that I'm trying to tie down the details of my plotship's overhaul and, while I'm at it, I might as well try to make it based on things that Wes considers would be preferable in SARP. If it works, then, future submissions might follow suit.

This is something I originally PMed to Wes because I was not interested in supplying a heapload of ideas only to be trolled or naysayed. But he asked me to post it in here so I have. This said, I'm very interested in any constructive comments. If we can discuss it and find some winning combination that would fit Wes' needs, stands as coherent when put under close scrutinery and be reasonably easy and simple to use once implemented... I think that would be a benefit to us all.
 
Honestly, I LIKE this system. This one doesn't require nearly as much math on the go, and I understand it after one read through, rather than still being confused. I agree that a retcon probably isn't a good idea, but this seems like something we could slowly move into effect without horribly changing things.
 
Well at any speed, when dealing with objects in space, there won’t be any terrain to use as cover. There is nothing to hide behind, nothing to use to disguise your ship, nothing to use to navigate around with the notable exception of a planetary rings which even then is debatable.

What you are going to be using your speed for is evasive maneuvers, which won’t use much of your ship’s resources because if it has the power to move at FTL speeds, moving at a fraction of C is going to be trivial. At this point so long as you have your FTL engines, enemy weapons are useless against you.

What follows from this is that your FTL can take you anywhere you want to go very quickly. If you need to go to a planet you warp over to the planet, if you need to go to a star base you warp to a star base. When in combat it makes you invulnerable…

…and this is where interdiction comes in. Once you have shut off your enemies FTL drives (and they’ve shut off yours) your battlefield is confined to about 1au of distance (average size of interdiction fields?) Both ships are then stuck using STL tactics to engage and destroy each other. For fleets attacking a planet you can mass and assemble all you want but once you want to go for the planet you have to go into the defenders interdiction field. For defenders, interdiction fields have to be arranged to best cover a planet without stretching them so much that a fleet can punch right through.

Used according to the rules interdiction pretty much completely solves all of the problems people have with how the RP operates now and leaves enough flexibility for GMs to get away with setting up battles how they want just no one really uses it. This is a lot like how we had a resource system (SRP) that was never really used, and the speed reductions that haven’t had an effect because everyone immediately went out and put ‘doublers’ on their ships. In many cases starship speeds have actually increased. So instead of creating a new system with new exploits and problems why not focus on tweaking the interdiction system to have more of an effect?

Perhaps most importantly, if there is going to be work done on the starship speeds system, why would you base it on speed? Speed, as it is used currently, is an entirely useless stat in space combat. Starships need to use Acceleration, not speed, for this stat. This will be far more useful as it will more easily tell players and GMs which ship can catch which ship and how likely it is for one ship to avoid getting hit. Having to keep track of warp in points, time traveled, distance traveled, locations of fleets in regards to where everything else is, seems like a much more complex solution with less effectiveness.
 
Well, Uso, you could be making a good point, but you're missing out on a few things.

The first point is how Wes did decide that he was going to fold two transportation systems into one. The other things was that he wanted to eliminate the use of spurts of superluminal speeds while in combat. Interdiction fields, in turn, have always been slightly 'iffy' because of how tug-of-war could happen between interdiction/anti-interdiction, and the conditions to escape.

Your statement of ships being faster is also flawed. Current top sublight speed is roughly 0.9c, which is the same as when the speed standard was before. 300 000c became 20 000c and 20 ly/m became 1 ly/m.

Mind you, your approach to this doesn't surprise me. Mine touches more on how the current methods we have are holdovers of at least five years and that some streamlining to better support Wes' method of narrative may be in order.

This, in turn, doesn't really require much in the way of speed adjustments except with sublight speeds. It also at this point doesn't need to be a retroactive change so it's really not much of an impedance to existing ship designs. We can easily take advantage of Wes' desired change to put in a few tweaks, mark them as newer engine technology that sees the day on newer starships built up from this point on and voila.

What we're essentially looking at, in this thread, in a sublight propulsion system that can attain higher fraction of the speed of light through minimal usage of the chosen FTL-drive model. CFS was always figured as being partly functional under interdiction, so it supports this without actually being super-luminal. The unaugmented sublight drive itself would offer speeds more in line to being able to make dramatic dogfights inside a planet's asteroid belt, circling around an asteroid for cover and perhaps giving non-beam weapons (particle cannons, railguns, non-FTL missiles) a somewhat better fighting chance.

Then, we look at a FTL drive system that is suitable for both intra-stellar and intra-planetary propulsion, with speed appropriate for both scales, and respecting previous established standards. The medium suggested is charging and super-charging them respectively - the 'charge' is basically the excuse why it seldom ends up being used in combat - because of the time delay and the demand on the ship's power supply.

Interdiction, in turn, could affect this FTL system, perhaps more intuitively in increasing the energy requirements (hence, charge time) needed to support FTL-grade speed. This could go, dependent on the technology of the race doing the said interdiction, to either disrupt subspace requiring a longer charge (the method Yamatai currently use) to perhaps performing a power drain that would make it take longer to accumulate the energy needed to make a jump (like perhaps how the aether denial systems could see some survavibility, without being entirely ineffective but also without entirely screwing up aether/ZPE-powered ships).

I think that would signify progress, some faithfulness to previously released material, and would streamline this all to be more user friendly while respecting ideals of the Setting Manager, Wes.
 
Over all, this method of travel reminds me a lot of the Eve Online MMO. Use of Fold or Jump Gates to travel from system to system with Warp travel available to get from planet to planet faster. Then again...the only difference is that Sublight in Eve is restricted to under 10km/s while SARP is 0.3 c for most people.

Either way, I like Fred's brainstorm very much. But this is mostly due to my own philosophies of space travel. For the Abwehrans, I've actually limited them to just Hyperspace Fold for FTL with charging times ranging from 30 minutes minimum to hours.

In-system travel is restricted to sub-light drives only, so it gives most Abwehran plotships opportunities for encounters.
 
Okay, first off. I've been put on some way cool drugs to compensate for ripping out my wisdom teeth, so this is really hard to write all in one go. Don't expect a lot in terms of wall of text, or anything, bro.

I have always been a proponent of a m/s based speed settings for sublight travel, because it's so much easier to keep track of for the average bear to understand than a number as large as .09c or a value that requires constant recording and estimation of IC seconds with an acceleration-based system. The question of how far a person moving at 700 m/s has traveled in 40 seconds is simpler than how far a person accelerating at 50G has travelled after 40 seconds of movement.

Yes, it's simple math to figure out, but m/s is *simpler* math.

As well, faction managers really have to consider what they're trading off by giving their faction ships that can fly at high LY/m values. Intersystem travel has the same impact as driving your car to work, so it's harder to justify the tightly knit crews you'd see in a Navy where boats spends months out at sea without ever making landfall. If that sounds like bullshit, how about the simple consideration that you have to return to port after every mission because running a campaign would mean nonstop combat for the crew just because traveling to the next objective in another system is a formality rather than a journey?
 
Been going through some mondo chest pain, and currently on enough meds to bring down a bull elephant as a result.

Fred said:
An additional point is how we could work on it to make categories on the FTL travel that's available in SARP. I hear Soresu often exclaim: "Different races might have different technologies!"

I am glad someone has finally taken this into account. Variety is best imo. I'll give this a more indepth read tomorrow, when I'm not feeling like I can see forever. Thus far, it seems to show some promise. I was just, "Whoa, text wall." But, Exhack's point of view does have some validity I cannot deny.
 
Well moving at a constant speed in space is not moving in space. People forget that planets are constantly accelerating as is everything else moving throughout space. Everyone is treats space combat like ships are giant airplanes.

And for the most part different races won't have different technologies, at least not in the sense of FTL drives beyond what is already established. If hyperspace travel is possible, then any race can discover how it operates independently of another. The same goes for any other form of FTL drive, and sense Yamatai, Nep, the NMX, and the UOC aren't constantly discovering new FTL drives then it makes sense that there aren't more forms of FTL that can be discovered by new/lowertech races.

Different technology that could be come across will almost always be in the form of different ways of doing the same thing like a wankle vs a piston driven engine. They are different technologies but the input and output are virtually the same.
 
Basically, the metaphor we're running for is a speed-bump: something that'll stop vessels from going beyond a certain speed or they take massive damage.

Startrek used mines but I think we can do this with something like a field that still allows travel at those speeds to be possible but makes it quite dangerous and unreasonable to do - Ideally a sort of speed-bump of warped space that'll shatter a craft using standard ship FTL gear and stop FTL rounds in their tracks the moment they enter these areas.

We'd then use massive wormhole generators the size of cities set on planets to run equipment from system to system or planet to planet ergo checkpoints so movements can be tightly monitored and regulated.

In no-man's land, you can move very quickly but well before you enter striking distance of a controlled system, your FTL capabilities are nerfed.


This was my intended solution for preventing Yamatai from just mowing down the reds for the Red+Occhestran plan I had that never came to fruition thanks to a lack of discussion. The system would consist of a network of 'nodes' that broadcast this interference-pattern into surrounding space and then sub-nodes that take the information and make 'terrain' out of distorted space based on the velocity of an object effectively creating invisible cover making direct invasion damn near impossible.

We'd end up with walled up systems not unlike Germany in WWII so we'd have a lot of fun getting in there and kicking ass with sub-light weapons and sub-light equipment - stripping this stuff down so the cavalry can arrive or so you can capture the point of interest and have an interesting escape that isn't "LOL WARP SPEED PLOX".




This idea was actually based on my interpretation of the term "gravidic mine" used when describing the Kobiyashi Maru scenario: The KM hit the deadzone and took massive damage. They didn't detect it or bother scanning since it would take an active scan (the kind that reveal your position) to spot one.



Anyway, that's my model in terms of gameplay regarding FTL bar-near sod the physics - though I have no doubt of the possibility or feasibility of it.


Edit:
I'm digging Exhack's meters-per-second notion. You have a direct understanding of the velocity - 100 m/s is 360 Kph for example.

Conversion available for use here.
 
Uso said:
Well moving at a constant speed in space is not moving in space. People forget that planets are constantly accelerating as is everything else moving throughout space. Everyone is treats space combat like ships are giant airplanes.

Contrary to popular belief, quite a few of us do know that constant speed is not possible in space due to...what is it...lack of friction. Anyone who even took conceptual physics or has seen a science program on space knows this Uso. There is only one problem. What is reality and what is practical in the setting. Reality and proper physics are all well and good, but we need to balance that with what is practical for the players and GMs of SARP. Many don't have the patience, tolerance, or mindset to deal with how far a starship can travel in a certain time only based on acceleration. We have to think of the people who want to have fun and aren't thrilled with math.

Uso said:
And for the most part different races won't have different technologies, at least not in the sense of FTL drives beyond what is already established. If hyperspace travel is possible, then any race can discover how it operates independently of another. The same goes for any other form of FTL drive, and sense Yamatai, Nep, the NMX, and the UOC aren't constantly discovering new FTL drives then it makes sense that there aren't more forms of FTL that can be discovered by new/lowertech races.

Different technology that could be come across will almost always be in the form of different ways of doing the same thing like a wankle vs a piston driven engine. They are different technologies but the input and output are virtually the same.

On this point, I will actually agree with you. In a specific setting it is hard to come up with multiple forms of FTL drive because new systems have the tendency to change a setting. Because of this, I understand that there can only be a few styles of FTL. Sublight, on the other hand, it's quite possible to have plenty of unique drives that don't change the setting to an extreme degree.

OsakanOne has some interesting ideas about creating a speed bump that would be responsible for keeping speeds down to more manageable levels.
 
Contrary to popular belief, quite a few of us do know that constant speed is not possible in space due to...what is it...lack of friction.

Well, constant speed is possible, there is friction in space, there are even other friction like events that will constantly be altering your speed in space which leads back to my reasoning as to why the majority of people here don't understand what movement in space is like so everyone has their ships move like in star trek.

The systems, especially ones based around constant speed, are not practical to use because they are based on what people see on TV shows. This gives no solid foundation from which the rules are taken so the rules inevitably are filled with holes and are completely unenforceable because only the person who has written the rules will know what he means by them, everyone else has their own interpretation.

Enforcement of the rules is important, and for the most part ignored by GMs and players. After all distance to your destination requires you know the speed of your destination as well as yourself. Figuring it out by subtracting the acceleration then figuring distance to travel is far easier than calculating acceleration of target + distance to target + distance traveled over time. Saying using constant speed is more complicated means you don't understand the basics of what is being discussed and that you probably ignore the rules anyways like has been done in the past.
 
Firstly, I am not a fan of a total overhaul to travel in the setting. The speed drop several years ago was OK and worked fine because, honestly, most people didn’t use ships at anything like what their stats said they were capable of. Much like how Aether weapons have ‘infinite energy’ but have never shown outputs anywhere within several dozen magnitudes of their theoretical outputs.

Redoing FTL from the ground-up like you are suggesting is a retcon that does have effects. More than just some stat changes on ship pages like the speed one did, and that is something I am against.

What I think needs to be done, rather than throwing out all of the established systems, is to decide on how these things do what they do, so that everyone is on the same page with it.

The breakdown you are suggesting, IMO, already exists. Hyperspace is for interstellar travel, CDD is for intrasteller use. The former goes vastly faster but is less flexible and takes time to initiate (whether it’s from calculation time or charging) while the latter is relatively slow but provides ‘on demand’ FTL. I think that this is a good division. Forcing a charge-up onto CDD removes the point of having it.

As far as their employment in combat I believe the issue is not with the FTL methods themselves, but with the dick waving that has brought about the proliferation of FTL drives that more or less ignore inhibitor fields. If a ship normally capable of 20k c can still go 2k c, for purposes of combat it has ignored the field (it will cross your average 1 AU-radius field in less than half a second). If FTL inhibitors actually worked the problem of ships booking around at insanely high speeds in combat would be much, much reduced. It would also allow for more in the way of strategy since a defender could arrange the battlefield and the attacker would have to make choices other than just hurtling at the enemy, inhibitor or no (“Do I want to lose my speed and go through the inhibitor field or keep it and attack from a vector the enemy expects?”).

I also must agree with Uso in regards to acceleration. In combat the more important figure is no how fast you can go but how long it takes to get their. However, I understand people don’t want to be dealing with math in the middle of their RPs so I would suggest this just be added as a note for submissions. Something like, Max Velocity: X.Xc (YYY seconds). In this way you would have a idea how long it is going to take to get to your speed and would also have the top (rated) speed for it.

In regards to power consumption, for STL I don’t think this should be a issue for most ships in the setting. I can see it being a problem for things relying on fusion for power (or maybe even AM for really high speeds) but for ships with Aether, hyperspace tap, or any other quantum-effect power system they have such astronomical power outputs that the power required for STL propulsion is minor. Particularly compared to the weapon systems many of these ships employ.

*Note: The Oort cloud is a theoretical (it is too far out to be easily observed so has not been conclusively confirmed at this time) ‘cloud’ of comets and other icy bodies. You would have to be staggeringly unlucky to hit one traveling through it at FTL. I don’t see it having any affect on FTL.

Edit:
Uso, as far as FTL is concerned the relative velocity of astral bodies (stars and planets) is so tiny compared to the ships travel speed that it can be safely ignored.
 
Thank you for your input, everyone whom chipped in.

I need to remind those concerned that the objective of this thread was to compare opinions in order to device a solid piece of new hardware the Star Army of Yamatai could use to fulfill Wes' requirements, desires and expectations while still being moderately faithful to the setting.

Here's what I believe so far would be ideal, from the collective feedback I've had from many of you.


* * *


REALSPACE PROPULSION:
Measured in meters per second. It seemed popular and it provides a very tangible translation into speeds available in relation to a planet, or at closer ranges. While speed figures would be constant, it would be an abstraction of acceleration and velocity.

Passive use of Hyperspace propulsion hardware would enable the vessel to attain and endure much higher velocities, allowing to use its realspace reactors and maneuvering thrusters more effectively to attain much greater speeds.

The field created would mostly be over the front of the vessel, so it would mostly provide high-energy forward locomotion - in essence motivating why combat tactics for Yamataian ships seem to revolve so much around concepts belonging to atmospheric dogfighting (ex.: on Miharu, Suzuka Yukari employs tricks such a J-maneuvers to get into favored positions).

Energy requirements for passive use of a vessel's hyperspace propulsion would be prohibitive when a ship is engaged in battle with offensive and defensive systems at optimal military power (especially on non-capital vessels). Sparing the power necessary to achieve a degree of sublight speed would involve diverting power from weapons or shielding; or maybe even both. This encourages the idea that high-energy sublight maneuvers would be used in combat at very specific instances, rather than as the norm.

Shunting power dedicated to shields would mean a decrease or a collapse of defensive capabilities. Even when power is reallocated after a sublight jump, the shields would have a time delay before they could come back to full strength (probably equal to the time it takes to raise them in the first place).

Diverting weapon power to passive hyperspace propulsion would mean that those weapons are actually deactivated. After the sublight maneuver, with power restored the weaponry would need to be re-armed (which may mean a time delay before someone can immediately reuse energy-dependent hardware).

This should make high-energy sublight maneuvers something to be used sparingly in battle; more for occasional gambles or evasive maneuvers. Shunt weapon power into a spurt of sublight speed to avoid a killing volley of torpedoes; or dump shield power to be able to make that looping behind an enemy in an eyeblink so you can have a shot at his reactors.

Seeing how 33% of the speed of light (100 000km) covers a sizeable distance in an eyeblink, it's actually already very close to superluminal combat - which is why sublight combat maneuvers can stand in for what could be done before, and why I attempt to make its use something to be sparingly done.


* * *


HYPERSPACE PROPULSION:
The visual medium for this concept would be similar to the one similar to what the Macross Frontier anime offers (see Youtube link, 0m20s).

That being, the vessel forms a space-time bubble to encompass what it will carry along in hyperspace: usually just itself - sometimes a wider space-time bubble could be formed by certain pieces of hardware to carry more along. The process of jumping into hyperspace itself would take only an eyeblink, the vessel leaping forward to be swallowed by a momentary gateway (visually more like a brief flash, really).

From there, the vessel appears in said hyperspace, a realm of flowing, effervescent energy, where it happens to be carried on to the destination choosen before the jump.

The actual function of the Hyperspace Propulsion hardware would mostly follow specifics offered by Vesper in another thread - this being the following:
Vesper said:
For hyperdrive, the reigning theory for its operation atm seems to be that it transitions to a coterminous, albeit more compact reality. Every point in real space has a corresponding point in hyperspace. However, due to the peculiarities of this reality the distance between these points is substantially less than in real space. As a result, a ship traveling at speed V for time t covers distance Vt in realspace but while traveling in hyperspace covers distance CVt (where C is some coefficient >>1) as observed from a distant realspace observer.

Gravitational effects in real space have a comparable gravitational “shadow” in hyperspace (and the reverse would hold true). A star would have a similar gravity well (called a “mass shadow”) within hyperspace that it does in real space. Due to the nature of hyperspace this mass shadow will be much more compact and will have a much greater rate-of-change compared to its real space gravity well. Because of this compaction any object crossing through the mass shadow will experience much higher shear than would a ship passing though the same gravity well in realspace.

Think of this as two hills, both 100 meters in height. One has a gentle slope to its bottom, covering a huge area with its base. The other has very steep sides but covers a fairly small area. Both are the same height (intensity) but you are obviously at more risk for injury falling down the steep hill than you are the gentle one.

As a result a ship has to exercise caution when traveling in hyperspace lest they come in contact with one of these gravity wells and suffer damage. Most Anti-FTL systems would disrupt hyperspace travel by generating mass shadows within hyperspace. While not as intense as those created by something like a star, they would be much more numerous and less predictable. This makes a ship traveling through the field either drop out of hyperspace or travel much slower (so the hazards can be navigated) or else risk damage or destruction by running into one of the mass shadows.

From there, this hardware would function with 3 stages of operation.

Stage 1 - Sublight Travel/Sustained Operation
Generating the space-time bubble - in a process perhaps not too dissimilar to how CDD handles it - would allow the vessel to travel in high fractions of the speed of light.

In realspace, the process is usually a partial one, in order to grease space and allow to get more acceleration, endurance and velocity out of the ship.

Sustaining the high sublight speed or keeping the space-time bubble up usually requires most of the power a vessel would have at its disposal. Coming into the presence of an interdiction field usually would require even more power for the hardware to sustain the space-time bubble - if that power requirement is not met (most often it won't) the vessel will be forced to drop out of hyperspace to deal with whatever was the interruption (or at its mercy).

Stage 2 - Charging/Intra-planetary travel
Ship power will typically be insufficient to provide the necessary power the hyperspace hardware needs to perform a jump to Hyperspace. For this reason, the equipment would include a set of powerful but short term energy-storing capacitors.

These capacitors can briefly hold a charge, long enough to power the hardware for the jump, but usually not long enough to retain it for very long.

This stage would imply that Yamataians have found a way to improve upon their hyperspace technology in order to fill the role CDD/CFS formerly filled... so we are talking about short hyperspace jumps that would be quickly charged - but slowly enough to make devoting the resources to charge for it in mid-battle not something favorable. right now, I'm thinking between 10 to 30 seconds for a 1 second jump at the inter-planetary speed the vessel is capable of.

This is definitely not as much 'on-notice' as CFS can do... but Wes has the requirement that superluminal combat not be possible. Remember: his design requirements involve a single fold-inspired system for all FTL travel without FTL capabilities being handily available in battle... in a fashion not necessarily all based on interdiction.

Like the current fold, the unit would share a line-of-sight limitation (determined by sensors). Interdiction would interfere with the fold attempt in a fashion where it would dramatically slow down forming passage to hyperspace, thus require longer charge times to achieve jump-worthy conditions. That way, escape is still remotely possible - but it would take a significant amount of time. An inter-planetary hyperspace jump would stop cold at the rim of an interdiction field, though.

Stage 3 - Charging/Intra-stellar travel
Quite similar to inter-planetary and our current fold drives. It could be argued that this new hyperspace propulsion hardware is different from the former one for its ability to traverse nebula (no choice, it's supposed to cover for CDD/CFS anyways and Vesper's nebula post only gives that more credence) and it's ability to be used while being charged at smaller increments for 'micro-folds' (the inter-planetary kind).

Charge time would be in minutes (5 to 20, also subject to interdiction for slower charge), travel would be in a straight line and I'm inclined to apply a distance limit to an hyperspace jump: the longer you charge, the farther hyperspace will be able to 'carry' you - but there's an implied charge limit somewhere.

Ending a jump may require a cooldown of the hardware before it can be charged/re-used. Perhaps that would be in itself a good reason why vessels would be equipped with two such jump drives (along with the advantage of redundancy, if one should be crippled).


* * *


Other:
I was thinking that it could be nifty to put some constraints on the sort of hyperspace propulsion systems a vessel could equip.

I thought of devising 5 classes of drive systems, respectively named Class 1 to Class 5. A vessel would only be able to equip an amount of hyperspace drives that would have thier numerals fit into the ship's size category.

ex.: A new Yamataian gunship (size 2) could either be equipped with a Class 2 Jumpdrive, or two Class 1s. The same gunship with only one Class 1 jumpdrive could perhaps have more power free to charge it and sustain other operations.

Additionally, I figured that there could be a few available variants of the said jumpdrives aside from the military standard which would balance the following attributes:

- Maximum inter-planetary speed (and thus change the distance covered in 1 second)
- Maximum inter-stellar speed (changing how fast you can get to a location)
- Charge Capacity (and thus change the maximum inter-stellar distance jumped)
- Charge Retention (once a unit's capacitors are charge, how long they can reliably hold it)
- Charging Speed (some drive units may be more efficient than others and require less power to function, thus shorter charge periods)
- Field integrity (how easy is it for interdiction to disrupt its operation)
- Range of space-time bubble (how wide it can expand to carry along others in an hyperspace jump)

The higher the Class number, the stronger the unit would be in its standard setting. Then we could base ourselves off a table I'd make in the wiki. Giving an advantage in one respect (by an increment) could lower another category by an increment.

Ex.: My size 2 gunship above could be equipped with two Class 1 jumpdrives that would have less inter-stellar speed and less charge capacity in exchange to a much higher charge retention time. This would have it ideal to performing swift hit-and-run operations (jump in, attack for a minute or two, jump out without needing to charge again).

That's about what I've targetted so far, barring Wes' feedback, or suggestions on how to streamline this.
 
Realspace propulsion seems to be contradictory to the hyperspace propulsion in that hyperspace is supposed to be a ‘jump’ type event where you leave the universe for a while and realspace propulsion seems to be the warp drive.

It would also completely fail to explain why combat for Yamatai ships is like atmospheric dog fighting as they are still in space so ‘forward’ and ‘the front of the ship’ is any direction they want it to be, there is no terrain, and no horizon to hide behind, and there is no atmospheric friction or anything similar to provide the banking turns used by aircraft.

It also ties into the shields, which means a re-evaluation of those systems. If they are going to be fixed too we should be getting rid of the ‘just divert more power to shields!’ trope anyways as it doesn’t make any sense (why aren’t the shields running at their most efficient power level in the first place?) In addition why would ships be using capacitors? Aether generators provide unlimited power so the issue is not ‘having power’ but rather ‘handling power’.

Then there is enforcement of rules, saying that ‘high energy bursts will be used sparingly’ is ridiculous without something to back that up. Based on previous experience with rules changes this will be outright ignored as everyone will have their own idea of what ‘sparingly’ is and that in turn is going to be ‘whenever we need it’

So:

I could see this working as a device for just a few ships, but as an update for the entire site it has a long way to go because it would need to expand to cover a new hyperspace, interdiction, CDD, Shields, and some sort of ‘power bandwidth economics’ entry to explain why we are transferring power all over the ship.
 
Oh, it's far simpler than that to me.

Uso said:
Realspace propulsion seems to be contradictory to the hyperspace propulsion in that hyperspace is supposed to be a ‘jump’ type event where you leave the universe for a while and realspace propulsion seems to be the warp drive.

Hyperspace fold drives... ah, fold space to achieve what they do. There are plenty of sci-fi sublight propulsion drives that tweak on the level of inertia that use the concept of 'bending' space. Surely a fold drive can do something so simple as bend space 'a bit'.

It would also completely fail to explain why combat for Yamatai ships is like atmospheric dog fighting as they are still in space so ‘forward’ and ‘the front of the ship’ is any direction they want it to be, there is no terrain, and no horizon to hide behind, and there is no atmospheric friction or anything similar to provide the banking turns used by aircraft.

Wes does it in the roleplay. I do it in the roleplay. Others do it in the roleplay. your point of view there is not an absolute... and I'll admit I'm far more interested in giving 'sci-fi' credence to something Wes does than otherwise.

If I create an engine type and say it favors forward movement - especially seeing that realspace reactors point backwards anyways... I really don't see the problem. The point was signifying that it didn't enhance anykind of lateral movements.

It also ties into the shields, which means a re-evaluation of those systems. If they are going to be fixed too we should be getting rid of the ‘just divert more power to shields!’ trope anyways as it doesn’t make any sense (why aren’t the shields running at their most efficient power level in the first place?) In addition why would ships be using capacitors? Aether generators provide unlimited power so the issue is not ‘having power’ but rather ‘handling power’.

Wes' idea, not mine, though I approve.

Furthermore, ship power plants, for a long time, have been recorded as being "aether generator and capacitor system".

This said, aether in a power source that does not run 'out of power' or 'out of fuel', but like a water faucet there's only so much water you can get at one time.

In this instance, I might need a glassful of water or a sinkful at once, something the water coming out of the faucet at any given time cannot sufficiently provide. If I happen to be drinking from the water at the same time, the glass or sink under the faucet fills a lot less quickly.

Then there is enforcement of rules, saying that ‘high energy bursts will be used sparingly’ is ridiculous without something to back that up. Based on previous experience with rules changes this will be outright ignored as everyone will have their own idea of what ‘sparingly’ is and that in turn is going to be ‘whenever we need it’

What is ridiculous about pointing out that you can probably manage only one sublight high-energy maneuver per roughly 10 seconds, and that it'll leave you vulnerable in some way for the next 10 seconds?

Yuumi battleship CFS units could make projected energy beams, but doing so weakened their shields. That was a limitation? Was it often brought into effect? No - people knew it was risky so they only did it on gambles. It wasn't abused.

The point is using it sparingly for dramatic impact, rather than have the ships zip around for large distances in an eyeblink. It's to prevent superluminal combat and I'm sure - seeing very few GMs like to do so anyhow - that this can be handled.

I could see this working as a device for just a few ships, but as an update for the entire site it has a long way to go because it would need to expand to cover a new hyperspace, interdiction, CDD, Shields, and some sort of ‘power bandwidth economics’ entry to explain why we are transferring power all over the ship.

Not entire site. Yamatai. Probably it's military first. Probably just a few ships to see if Wes actually likes it, and then expand if it's the case. I, for one, wouldn't mind tacking it on Miharu if it would encourage Wes' visions of things he'd like to come.

Uso, the thread is for asking help to improve the idea given some prerequisites; not condemning it. Thanks.
 
Hyperspace drives involving sending the ship into hyperspace where distances are smaller (see vesper’s thing on hyperspace) The drive does not actually help the ship move any faster, it just gets the ship to where it can traverse distances faster.

The engine also favors ‘forward’ movement but where is forward? A ship can point its drive in any direction and then that is the new forward. To move like an airplane you need to have atmospheric friction, which is what causes the slow turns, not the engine. After all jet engines favor forward movement, as do rocket engines, but neither are the reason why aircraft move like aircraft (again, atmospheric friction)

there's only so much water you can get at one time.
Is also not exactly right. You can get as much energy as you want until your ship explodes. There is no limit to how much energy you can get, only how much energy you can handle. It doesn’t matter if a capacitor, or an aether generator, is providing power to the ship because the limiting factor is the ship’s ability to handle the energy not the rate they can get it. Rather, you can always fill the sink instantly, so the limiting factor is the size of your sink.

As for rules limitations, one high energy maneuver per 10 seconds, leaving you vulnerable for the next 10 seconds? Right off the top of my head ‘high energy maneuvers’ could last for 19 seconds, I could use the jumps EVERY 10 seconds on the mark meaning enemy ships have only 10 second windows to acquire, target, fire at, and hit my, ect, ect, ect. This is going to be everyone constantly warping around instead of ‘just when you need it’. I’d also like to point out that no one had the means to exploit weakened shields at that time, and weakened shields were only mentioned a few times when a single GM was handling both sides of the conflict. It is hardly as abuseable or even on the same scale as this kind of thing. Like I said it would work fine with one GM using it but applied across the entire site it is going to be abused.
 
Just the space-time bubble is in effect bending space and the bubble itself seems to be a convention for how hyperspace can work here anyhow. This really doesn't look like a problem.

Additionally, I figured it worked sort of like an inertia-less propulsion drive... except I want it to work partially so that it can increase what you can squeeze out from engine thrust and maneuvering thrusters. The ship, under those conditions, should move faster, and spin around faster.

Seeing these are in-combat brief spurts of speed, I figure that most of the trajectories it'll follow will essentially be bezier curves. Those can emulate most airplane maneuvers, thus granting credence to some of the maneuvers players crop up with.

Please don't put me in a Uso vs. Fred debate and ruin this thread. I know, and have the agreement of several other people I've asked second opinions on this aspect, that it is viable on a sci-fi perspective (because if you want to get to realism, well, superluminal travel in the first place is 'impossible').

I'd welcome you having a better idea to implement what I mean, though. But it consistently doesn't seem to be what you reply.

* * *

The faucet metaphor is Wes'. I figure he'd know best over aether generators.

* * *

As for rule limitation, that's not even worthy of anykind of in-dept reply.
Game Masters can use moderation, and convey that doing something can be risky or bad.

Just like when Egon said 'crossing the streams' was bad. It was. but at some point, there was something useful to do with it.
 
Though the starships can emulate aircraft, they have no reason to as it requires vastly more energy and resources to do than just moving like a spaceship. Even with brief bursts of speed bezier curves are a very poor approximation of what a starship will move like. There really is no explanation for why ships would move like this other than the pilot’s personal preference or poor training.

I also wouldn’t say Game Masters can use moderation, which I think is the problem not FTL drives. When the speed limitation rules were put in place the first thing people did was claim their ships had the right to ignore the rules and travel at faster speeds with only a few exceptions. When that got sorted out then people came out with speed doublers, negating the effects the new speed limitations had. Like Vesper said the problem is with the dick waving, not with the mechanics.

People are going to ignore the limitations on the device based on past experience with rule changes. In addition to that they will also be exploiting this device to the fullest. I can promise that everyone has a different idea of what level of moderation is acceptable.


I'm also sure that I'm right in regards to aether. Power Bandwidth was a concept use to explain it way back when the stararmy site was started.
 
Uso...seriously...the tone of your writing is coming out more like 'you're wrong and I'm right', which is not the type of tone you want to set.

Anyway, If we are trying to combine the CCD and Fold Drive into a single system instead of separate systems, I believe Fred is on the right track. However, I personally think the current limit to 0.3c for sublight drives works just fine. As it has been pointed out before, such velocities would get your ship around a system in a matter of hours. Using the space-time bubble to generate a warp effect to reach 0.7c - 1c would be perfect for needing to get somewhere in-system relatively quickly.

Let's look at it this way:

Basic Inter-planetary travel can be conducted by standard sublight drives (Ion, Fusion, etc.) due to their relatively low power/fuel consumption (compared to FTL drives). This allows a vessel to reserve it's fuel/power for other endeavors like active long-range scans, boosting shields, or even firing weapons systems.

Military or Emergency Inter-planetary travel could be like the CDD where you warp space-time to move space around the ship so it can get to a location quickly. This would be in cases where an enemy has invaded a system and you need to get there on the double. There would be a greater power/fuel consumption than standard sublight drives, but would have a relatively quick charge time compared to Folding space-time. It also gives the option of Wes' FTL combat, though I wouldn't know how that would work anyway.

Then we would have Interstellar travel executed by Hyperspace Fold. Fred's idea of it being a lot like Macross Frontier's method of Fold seems to be interesting and could work for the setting. Either way, Fold Operations could be limited to either just beyond the Oort Cloud or outside a hyperspace limit (where the gravity from the star would be low enough to translate into hyperspace). It would draw a much larger power/fuel consumption than any of the other methods/modes and have a moderately long charge time but would be the fastest form of travel.

Yes, this is a lot like Fred's brainstorm, but as I said...it's on the right track. We don't need to make this entirely complex like creating Power Bandwidth tables and what not. I would like to believe GMs and Players are mature enough to use common sense when it comes to deal with Power/Fuel Consumption rates. Then again, I've been known to be wrong about these things.

As for how starships fly, just watch the Starfuries from Babylon 5. They fly in a relatively accurate way for space.
 
Here's my goals:

- Replace all FTL systems with an improved version of hyperspace
Note that this not a Yamatai thing but a site-wide thing.
The new hyperspace could be usable from planets, maybe not to them, though. It would not be faster than current hyperspace speeds. Because FTL would now be exclusive to hyperspace, there would no longer be FTL combat.
- Limit STL to .40 globally (due to relativity concerns)
- Eliminate doublers and triplers. I never liked that clause in the speed limitations anyway.
- Eliminate the current "nebula = anti-FTL" rule

I do not want to:
- Nerf small ships by making them slower as Fred suggested

I think we might need to have some sort of handle on how fast ships can speed up based on their class - it doesn't make a lot of sense to have them go from .00c to .375c instantly, does it? I would be willing to lower STL speeds too, if it was done in a way the gameplay didn't suffer (allowing in-system folds?)
 
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