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.
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.
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.
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.