How do you build Drives?

[TheRavenIs]

Real Space Drive:

 

105 Real Space Drive/ Atmospheric Drives: Flight 50", Position Shift, x8 Noncombat, Requires A Combat Piloting (No Active Point penalty to Skill Roll; +0), Full Reverse (+1/4), Sideways Maneuverability full velocity (+1/2), Noncombat acceleration/deceleration (+1) (316 Active Points); OIF Bulky (-1), Require maintenance once every two weeks (-1/2), Crew-Served ([3-4] people; -1/2)

 

Jump Drive:

 

26 Jump Drive: Teleportation 9", MegaScale (1" = 1 lightyear; +3 1/2), Can Be Scaled Down 1" = 1km (+1/4) (85 Active Points); OIF Immobile Durable Expendable (Easy to obtain new Focus; -1 1/2), Side Effects (Side Effect always occurs whenever the character does some specific act; misjump if missed Navigation Roll; -1/4), Requires A Skill: Navigation Roll (Active Point penalty to Skill Roll is -1 per 20 Active Points; -1/4), Crew-Served (2 people; -1/4)

 

FTL Drive:

 

16 FTL Drive: Faster-Than-Light Travel (15 Light Years/hour), Requires A Combat Piloting Skill Roll (No Active Point penalty to Skill Roll, Variable RSR; +0) (44 Active Points); OIF Bulky Durable (-1), Require maintenance once every two weeks (-1/2), Crew-Served (2 people; -1/4)

 

These are three that I created.

[tkdguy]

Re: How do you build Drives?

 

Looks great! Perhaps the real space drive can be used in a game where the scope is limited to the solar system.

[TheRavenIs]

Re: How do you build Drives?

 

I designed that one with alot of different game idea's in mind.

[Erkenfresh]

Re: How do you build Drives?

 

As much as I joke about this power, I think it might be a good alternative.

 

Wormhole Generator: Extra-Dimensional Movement (Single Dimension, Any Location corresponding to current physical location), x2,048 Increased Weight (77 Active Points); Extra Time (1 Hour, -3), Increased Endurance Cost (x5 END; -2), OIF Bulky (-1), Only within 1 lightyear of current position (-1/4)

[TheRavenIs]

Re: How do you build Drives?

 

Now that is an intresting take on that power.

[Erkenfresh]

Re: How do you build Drives?

 

It's the only thing I could come up with that you hadn't.

[TheRavenIs]

Re: How do you build Drives?

 

I hope others come in and post idea's for ship drives.

[Manic Typist]

Re: How do you build Drives?

 

This has intensified my ponderings on the issue of intersolar travel in space settings.

 

What kind of FTL travel do you use, and why?

 

Do we go with the concept of "jump points, (re: The Shiva Option)" which are predefined in a system and not alterable by sentient races? This leads to one certain feel, especially when it comes to issues of conflict (war, escape).

 

What about Babylon 5 and jump gates, which are created artifically, and then large ships can go into hyperspace on their own? This creates a different feel.

 

There is just going lightspeed....

 

There is "all ships can jump," as is basically evidenced in Homeworld...

 

What sort of considerations do you see, especially from an economic/military viewpoint? Also, the expansion of private trade and explorerers/settlers?

[Duke Bushido]

Re: How do you build Drives?

 

Did a short campaign where space travel was "Rowan" style. (Hey-- don't start; I'm not a McAfrey (sp?) fan, but the idea was novel)

 

That is, ships where moved into hyperspace by rare by extremely powerful psions located at starports around the universe. FTL communication was handled the same way.

 

Wasn't my favorite for 'the law,' but it eventually became a minor background point in our 'main' campaign.

[TheRavenIs]

Re: How do you build Drives?

 

Well if you have a system of natural jump-points then all that a civilization needs is the means to find them and use them for travel. This makes creating stations as close to them as possiable to defend the system. It also creates the need to map the jump-gate system.

[TheRavenIs]

Re: How do you build Drives?

 

I am in a game that uses the idea that FTL is possiable but to do so you have to use special area's of space, trade lanes. These TL's are for the most part stable but can be altered due to excess speeds and/or level of traffic. Some TL's are so unstable they are called Pirate Lanes, to use them you need a type of FTL gravity/space sensor, they exist but are expensive.

[Manic Typist]

Re: How do you build Drives?

 

An interesting idea.

[DEFCON Clown]

Re: How do you build Drives?

 

Here is how I handle FTL. This is from a game I was going to run on HC that didn't make it because of lack of interest.

 

Lyle Drive

When Lyle Pritcher invented the hyperdrive he turned the galaxy into a true interstellar community. It was now possible to send messages and ships hundreds of light years in a matter of days. It was now possible to travel from Earth to Iris (a distance of 931 light years) in three weeks!

 

Hyperspace

Hyperspace is very dangerous. It is constantly shifting and changing, making it impossible for a computer to navigate.

 

To Be Immune to HHS is a 5pt Perk, to be a Trained Navigator is a 10pt perk, it also requires the following skills Systems Operation (Lyle Drive), Navigation (Lyle Space), TF:(A FTL Spaceship), SS:Mathematics.

 

Hyperspace can only be navigated by a human.

Unfortunately not everyone can stand the sight of hyperspace. For the vast majority of people even a small peek at hyperspace causes blinding headaches, intense vertigo, and horrible nausea. This has become know as Hyperspace Sensitivity Syndrome. All psionics sufer from HSS and it is not completely understood why, though it obviously has to do with their mental abilities.

 

Only normal humans can navigate hyperspace and even then there are onlya few hundred thousand trained Navigators in the whole galaxy. They are more humans that do not suffer from HSS that are not Navigators due to any number of other variables. From slow reaction times, to a lack of mathmatical ability.

 

Excessive discharge of energy in hyperspace has catastrophic results in hyperspace so powerful it actually leaks out into real space. Effectively this means that while you can pursue someone through hyperspace you can't attack them while in hyperspace or you'll both be destroyed.

 

 

A side effect of the small amount of Navigator's (maybe 300k in a galaxy of 100billion+) meant that Navigator's are hardly ever killed purposely in a battle between ships, even pirates won't kill them. They kidnap them and force them to navigate for them, though.

[Manic Typist]

Re: How do you build Drives?

 

How do ships get destroyed then? You'll always run the risk of killing a Navigator.

 

It's not like the captain would eject him in an escape pod, after all.

[Erkenfresh]

Re: How do you build Drives?

 

Boarding parties of course.

[DEFCON Clown]

Re: How do you build Drives?

 

The Navigator's seat was part of an escape pod that automatically launched if too much damage was taken to the rest of the ship. And yes boarding parties. Navigators where recognized as protected persons in the rules of war in that game. Killing them by accident was okay but doing it purposely was a war crime.

[TheRavenIs]

Re: How do you build Drives?

 

Did a short campaign where space travel was "Rowan" style. (Hey-- don't start; I'm not a McAfrey (sp?) fan, but the idea was novel)

 

That is, ships where moved into hyperspace by rare by extremely powerful psions located at starports around the universe. FTL communication was handled the same way.

 

Wasn't my favorite for 'the law,' but it eventually became a minor background point in our 'main' campaign.

 

The series was know as The Tower. I like the way they used TK with generator agumentation to boost a Prime Level TK to move a ship instantly across space. Plus they also used a method of measuring Psionic power, that I loved.

 

The series also had a conventional form of FTL but I haven't quite figured out all the bells and whistles.

[TheRavenIs]

Re: How do you build Drives?

 

I have a question Duke Bushido, how did you do the TK/TP over galatic distances.

[Duke Bushido]

Re: How do you build Drives?

 

Wow. I pulled up the wrong thread!

 

Sorry for the necromancy, but evidently I failed to answer this question before I went AWOL....

 

One of my players had seen something in -- I think Dragon Magazine, but it was so long ago that I don't really remember where he found it---

 

it was akin to what is, today, "Megascale." Essentially, that's how we did it. Just for plot and flavor, we required that ship's navigators also be psychic, and they were an essential part of the job. You know: give the players a reason to want to spend points on something esoteric.

 

 

I apologize for the necromancy.

[DusterBoy]

Re: How do you build Drives?

 

The Vorkosigan Saga has the Nexus, a system of natural wormholes. The planets/systems that have wormholes have huge strategic importance, like the wormhole which connects Barrayar to Komarr - and thus the rest of the Nexus IIRC. Earth only has one wormhole connection, which means it's become something of a backwater.

 

And wormholes can disappear, which leads to the Time of Isolation in Barrayaran history.

 

Lois freely admits she handwaved the physics for interstellar travel in oder to get on with the story.

 

In game terms, I think that a Vorkosigan Saga jumpship would be built with Teleportation, with the appropriate levels of MegaScale, OAF Bulky (the Necklin Rods) and the appropriate levels of Increased Mass so the ship itself can make the jump. (Only one ship at a time can get through a wormhole).

 

To the passengers, the trip seems instantaneous. So far, the navigator's POV has not been described.

[Nyrath]

Re: How do you build Drives?

 

Lois freely admits she handwaved the physics for interstellar travel in oder to get on with the story.

In the same way, a game master should handwave the physics for interstellar travele in order to create the desired strategic and tactical situation.

[L. Marcus]

Re: How do you build Drives?

 

Remember -- ships travel at the Speed of Plot.

[Kristopher]

Re: How do you build Drives?

 

Remember -- ships travel at the Speed of Plot.

 

That's not the same thing, though.

 

"Speed of plot" is a negative term for blatantly inconsistant travel times that serve whatever whim the writer or director has.

 

Once one has established how your drives work and how long it takes to go certain places, one does not ignore it later just because it's inconvenient to the story one wants to tell.

[DusterBoy]

Re: How do you build Drives?

 

In "A Step Further Out" Vol 1, Jerry Pournelle sez that for "The Mote In God's Eye" her and Larry Niven worked out the Alderson drive in detail and then lived with the resulting limitations.

 

Boiling it down - the Alderson Drive (named after Dan Alderson at CalTech who worked out the equations) posits the existence of a "fifth force", distinct from the nuclear forces, electromagnetism and gravity. This leads to the discovery of a "continuum universe" lacking in quantum effects and in which objects can travel as fast as they can be accelerated. This results in "tramlines" (as Pournelle names them) between specific stars. No tramline - no chance of reaching the target star with the Alderson Drive. You arrive at the relevant Alderson Point, turn on the Drive and if you've done everything right you vanish, to reappear an immeasurably short time later at your destination. It's strictly point-to-point across interstellar distances, no shortcut between Earth or Mars, or Saturn, etc. In-system travel requires reaction drives.

 

I'd build it as EDM (Single Dimension, Any location in the "continuum universe" which corresponds to your position in the "quantum universe"), OAF Bulky, Requires A Skill Roll (To make sure you've done everything right, I don't think there'd be a penalty to the skill roll).

 

(If anyone else has read "A Step FurtherOut" or "The Mote In God's Eye" and wants to refine this build, please feel free.)

[Nyrath]

Re: How do you build Drives?

 

In "A Step Further Out" Vol 1, Jerry Pournelle sez that for "The Mote In God's Eye" her and Larry Niven worked out the Alderson drive in detail and then lived with the resulting limitations.

 

Boiling it down - the Alderson Drive (named after Dan Alderson at CalTech who worked out the equations) posits the existence of a "fifth force", distinct from the nuclear forces, electromagnetism and gravity.

Yes, but you appear to be missing the point.

 

The Alderson Drive was created with the express purpose of making starship combat possible. This is a natural outgrowth of the resulting limitations.

 

From "Building the Mote in God's Eye"

Travel by Alderson Drive consists of getting to the proper Alderson Point and turning on the Drive. Energy is used. You vanish, to reappear in an immeasurably short time at the Alderson Point in another star system some several light-years away. If you haven’t done everything right, or aren’t at the Alderson Point, you turn on your drive and a lot of energy vanishes. You don’t move. (In fact you do move, but you instantaneously reappear in the spot where you started.)

 

That’s all there is to the Drive, but it dictates the structure of an interstellar civilization.

 

To begin with, the Drive works only from point to point across inter*stellar distances. Once in a star system you must rely on reaction drives to get around. There’s no magic way from, say, Saturn to Earth: you’ve got to slog across.

 

Thus space battles are possible, and you can’t escape battle by vanishing into hyperspace, as you could in future history series such as Beam Piper’s and Gordon Dickson’s. To reach a given planet you must travel across its stellar system, and you must enter that system at one of the Alderson Points. There won’t be more than five or six possible points of entry, and there may only be one.

 

Star systems and planets can be thought of as continents and islands, then, and Alderson Points as narrow sea gates such as Suez, Gibraltar, Panama, Malay Straits, etc. To carry the analogy further, there’s tele*graph but no radio: the fastest message between star systems is one car*ried by a ship, but within star systems messages go much faster than the ships.

 

Hmm. This sounds a bit like the early days of steam. Not sail; the ships require fuel and sophisticated repair facilities. They won’t pull into some deserted star system and rebuild themselves unless they’ve carried the spare parts along. However, if you think of naval actions in the period between the Crimean War and World War One, you’ll have a fair picture of conditions as implied by the Alderson Drive.

 

If the Drive allowed ships to sneak up on planets, materializing without warning out of hyperspace, then there could be no Empire even with the Field. There'd be no Empire because belonging to the empire wouldn't protect you. Instead there might be populations of planet-bound serfs ruled at random by successive hordes of of space pirates. Upward mobility would consist of getting your own ship and turning pirate.

 

This system works so well for allowing interstellar combat that it was immediately adopted by several wargames, most notably StarFire.