Starship Speed discussion thread

[Soban]

I feel like I should note that I'm fine with Fred using whatever speed standards that he likes in his RP. Indeed, I can see where he's getting them and why. However, if we are talking about a site wide update to speed standards or just updating DRv3 speed section to be consistent with the rest of the wiki, Fred's numbers are wildly inconsistent with the rest of the site.

 

[Fred]

I came here because I was asked for solutions, Soban. Solutions are usually grounded in actual need. SARP has shot itself in the foot for more than a decade with values Wes chose because he wanted to statistically +1 the super-high numbers of other settings.

Everytime I've managed to implement some change, it was a downgrade meant to be staggered, because going back to an ideal value was too far off the left field to previously written roleplay. I couldn't fix it then. But I do know it's fixable now because I've proven to myself during my current scenario that it works.

But no, I'm not wildly inconsistent with SARP. As was historically proven (because I'm now that old, yick), SARP has for a long time just been wildly inconsistent with itself and pretended it wasn't. I'm just no longer keen on humoring it.

But there's no sense in saving SARP from itself if it doesn't want to be saved. Then, that is its own business. I'm not asking for anyone's permission; I'm just providing knowledge. If you don't deem it useful to you... well, the phrase that crop to my mind is sucks to be you. That's not me trying to be mean, it's just me being very... unfiltered. Like I said: beyond this attempt (and this post may be the last in that vein) to help with this topic... I kind of don't care what you do with it..

* * *

Humankind designs stuff that works, and due to resource scarcity, we rarely design in order to overkill. If our objective is to leave Earth to reach the moon, there's actually very little reason to make an thrusters that will propel you. As I mentioned before:

So, by extrapolation, humanity's propulsion technology needs to have advanced to having conventional engines capable of going at a minimum of at least 8kps (28,800 km/h) to deal with an Earth-like environment; and upward to 60kps (216,000 km/h) in order to safely maneuver around the gravity wells featured by all planetary bodies in the Sol system. Reaching and surviving the G-forces implied by the accelerating to such speeds fall under the umbrella of technology relating to life support and gravity control systems.

60 kps accounts for going everywhere around Sol. Like, cross-country, baby!

But the truth is that a freighter going from Earth to Mars doesn't need thrusters that can do much more than escape Earth's gravity and then in turn escape Mars' gravity (0.376 G). Therefore, a civilian freighter with thrusters capable of propelling it at 8kps would be amply sufficient. Even if that freighter would need to maneuver extremely carefully around Jupiter... it actually doesn't need to. Nor should most civilian captains even worry about exceeding Jupiter's gravity because you'd usually just steer clear, or have no business being there.

Regarding combat, nor should that matter much. At 60kps, lasers will hit you. Railguns going at a fraction of c (even 0.05c) will probably get you unless fancy flying is involved. And most missiles will go much faster than 60kps since they don't have to worry about keeping anyone inside alive, and will have hideously unfair power-to-mass ratio advantages (think 315+ kps). So, a civilian has few reasons to invest in better thrusters (investing meaning "spend cash") and spend more fuel than he actually needs to. So, most of the time, civilian access to better equipment like that is limited.

Not that it's impossible, but it likely has something to do with permit and whatnot. A civilian exploration vessel might need those better engines, but they might be chartered with support from the government. Not saying that civilian exceptions won't happen (homebuilt engines, salvage, overclocking, competition flying, etc...)

Otherwise than navigating, military craft do have a good reason for getting the better engines, and it's for aggressive positioning and catching up with other people to intercept or overtake (police cars have better specs than normal cars). The military is pretty big on projection of force, so it matters to them, and their budget it really not on the same scale as civvies.

...

All done. Have a good one.

 

[Alex Hart]

I like these new speeds a lot, but I'm just trying to figure out how to balance them for every tech level across the board, as well as allow for some degree of evasion during combat so that we don't lose the whole space opera feeling of combat. Once that's been done, I think then would be the best time to gauge a reaction from the rest of the site.

 

[Toshiro]

I'm not sure if the others on the site see the need for this though, at least from previous comments. Perhaps they can react to what Fred's put, which is well-structured and reasonable, but it seems like the answer to a problem that most people don't think exists. If anything, slowing the ships down turns the 'three second range' concept for current weapons into something of a far longer duration - making light-speed energy/aether weapons significantly difficult to evade in the process. Current combat systems and weapons are also built around the existing STL speeds. Weapon ranges would need discussed or amended just as much as top speeds for submissions.

As far as the firing cone of the Plumeria being something perceived as unevadable, it comes with a notable range hit and is best employed in specific situations. Powerful, but situational.

Also, the engines have to be strong enough to leave a hill sphere at a decent pace, which is many times further out than the furthest planet in the system. I see Fred's numbers as reasonable application of if we were to roleplay out the minutia of intra-system travel within safety limits, but that doesn't mean that's the maximum the engines should possess or see use in for combat. If it weren't for the issue with the weapon ranges as stated above, I might entertain the notion of an 'acceleration penalty' for speeds above 0.1c or so as a compromise, so higher speeds were used more for utility than combat. My last RP actually involved ships racing from the edge of the star system to the planet, and the speed they could achieve actually having a serious impact on the outcome of the fight.

Again, it comes down both to what the GM is willing to play or pay attention to and the value in changing everything we already have to resolve a matter most people don't seem bothered by.

 

[Syaoran]

You guys do realize that DRV3 isn't actually inconsistent right? The numbers do align, just that DRV3 gives bonuses for your armor weight. Also if you look at the dates. The SSS is out of date compared to DRV3.

Also as Toshiro says, our weapon systems and targeting systems are actually built to deal with these kinds of speeds (for the most part) so a change to speed on a site wide level would be very labor intensive. Also no offense to anyone, but I don't think all the GMs can handle such a complex speed system.

I will say that it's very well thought out and mechanically speaking the most comprehensive and best we've had. But right now, for the site it's not worth the effort to implement it, because we wouldn't really gain much of anything.

There are benefits to the way we have things now just listing a max speed, it enables GMs to take more control of the situation. The example listed above of "Oh we're all going slow but suddenly I go fast to dodge" can't actually happen unless the GM wants it to. The GM could say things like gravity is too strong in the area, or particle density is too high, or whatever they want to keep ships slow as they want for the combat scene. The speed listed is the 'max speed' of the ship, it doesn't mean it's available at all times.

And @Fred I just want to be clear, I really do think your system is great, just I don't think SARP is at a level where everyone can GM that without it stressing them out and making them shy away form ship related stuff.

 

[Alex Hart]

The issue with DRv3 right now is that it only gives speeds for the highest tech tier, which is what everyone has been using for creating their ships, regardless of their actual tech level.

 

[club24]

Speak for yourself, not everyone on the site likes to go balls to the wall values on everything

 

[Toshiro]

The issue with DRv3 right now is that it only gives speeds for the highest tech tier, which is what everyone has been using for creating their ships, regardless of their actual tech level.

That sounds less like an inherent problem with the DRv3 system and more an issue with the creation and approval process not properly checking if the speed requested is appropriate for a vessel's role and faction/corporation (combining to make the tier) through the SSS (plus DRv3's armor speed modifier if applicable). I know that for my civilian submissions, I'll knock the speed down. Sometimes to a significant degree depending on the application.

I could see adding a link to the SSS in the appropriate section of the DRv3 article saying that more details can be found there, or even merging the SSS into DRv3 as one combined reference, neither of which would actually change much in rules but could resolve this issue by being more consistent and available to creators. At the same time, NTSE staff will have to redouble their efforts to ensure that a vessel's speed is appropriate for its given application and faction.

Of course, whether we went with the above or with an alternate idea, an effort to explicitly define the maximum tech level of a faction or corporation for this application is needed. We know Yamatai and Nepleslia are top-tier, but I'm not so sure about the others.

 

[Alex Hart]

It also looks like the speed boosts are only for the "very advanced faction" tech level, based on my observations.

 

[Syaoran]

The speed boost are for any faction, not just 'very advanced' It says how much the boost gives and then what the max is after the boost. No where does it say it's faction specific.