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atgxtg
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 Posted: Sun Mar 20, 2011 2:27 pm Post subject: |
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| Dustflier wrote: | | I'm under the impression that G-forces generally don't apply in space, as gravity is lessened greatly due to the distance from large orbital masses. Also, Gs themselves cause problems with human anatomy, but not durasteel. Due to the fact that there are artificial gravity and inertial compensators in spacecraft in the Star Wars universe, I also don't think that G-forces would apply on the interiors of the craft to enough of a degree that it would harm sentients severely. Not to mention, durasteel is said to be 300,000 times stronger than steel, even when thin. If anything, I could see exterior antennae and radar domes coming off the ISD, but not the hull breaking apart. |
Yes, the apply. crmcneill is essentially correct. Gravity is simply a form of acceleration, caused by the mass of objects. Air and spac vehicles often have their acceleration rated in terms of "G's" rather than in meters per second per second.
Basically if you are in a spaceship acceleration at 1G you are experiencing the same forces as if you were in freefall on a planet with a standard (Earth/Corscant) gravity of 1G.
And if gravity didn't apply in space, all the stars, planets, moons, asteroids, satellites, etc. would fly off, rather than orbit. Generally, there is always some G force affecting an object, but that force might be very small. |
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atgxtg
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| Posted: Sun Mar 20, 2011 2:37 pm Post subject: |
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| crmcneill wrote: | | In the case of ships in space, SWU level starship acceleration is immense, pushing dozens or even hundreds of gs of acceleration. |
According to the Essential Guide, thousands.
Yeah, that seems like a lot, but they would need that ype of acceleration to be able to turn at high speeds.
The G forces in a turn increase with the square of the velocity. That is is two vehicles are both turning at the same rate, but one is going twice as fast as the other, it is pulling four times as many Gs. So if those Starfighters are travelling at thousands of kph, they would need insanely high acceleration to be able to turn on a credit like they do. |
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
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Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Sun Mar 20, 2011 3:11 pm Post subject: |
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I wonder if repulsorlifts could be an explanation for why starfighters move the way they do in the SWU. Babylon 5 and Battlestar Galactica were more realistic, with fighters having to reorient themselves in space and burn thrusters to change directions. Ships in SWU seem to behave as though they are in atmosphere even while in space, which doesn't fit with reality, unless there is an alternate explanation.
I'm thinking that maybe the ship's repulsorlifts are used in deep-space combat to simulate atmospheric flight. To do this, the repulsorlifts would affect a highly localized gravity field to create gravity "slopes" (for lack of a better word). If the gravity field were strong enough, it would effectively bend the fighter's linear trajectory off onto a new heading without needing to resort to realigning the craft so that its engines can shove it off on a new course (although that could still be a factor).
The RAW seems to make the assumption that a ship in Star Wars is still using the same basic technology of maneuvering thrusters, despite being lightyears ahead in terms of environmental support, weaponry, defense systems, sensors and propulsion. Why shouldn't the ship's maneuvering system be just as advanced?
EDIT: After all, if the tech-minded SW fans are correct, the gravity compensation systems on these ships are capable of nullifying thousands of g's, it's not too much of a stretch to think that they could generate thousands of g's to pull a ship off course.
If you think about it, any ship with this capacity (including the largest of capital ships) would also be capable of atmospheric operations, including ISDs and larger ships. A gravity system capable of generating that much energy could certainly hold a starship at a hover in an atmosphere.
EDIT 2: Also, it certainly makes gravity well projectors much easier to understand, if an Interdictor can generate a gravity well equal to a small star (which is the comparison I heard once, but can't remember where).
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.
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atgxtg
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| Posted: Sun Mar 20, 2011 4:44 pm Post subject: |
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It's a good theory, but...
Repulsorlifts drop of in efficiency with gravity. That is they need a gravity well to push off of. At least that is what the rulebooks say.
However, what if starships generated a gravity field for the repulsorlifts to "push" against? That would explain the atmospheric turning. But...
That would cause some difficulties with hyperdrives. Although...that might explain why so many fighters aren't equippmed with them. Maybe the ships have to have more advanced/experienve g-field generators that can cut out when the hyperdrive kicks in. |
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garhkal
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| Posted: Sun Mar 20, 2011 4:59 pm Post subject: |
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| crmcneill wrote: | | like the Sydon MRX-BR Pacifier. It's faster and only slightly less maneuverable than a Cloakshape (although the Cloakshape is tougher), and it has passenger and cargo capacity, plus a year of consumables. A few little modifications and this ship would be a pretty formidable opponent in a dogfight, plus be a lot more versatile for other missions. |
Ahh.. a fellow lover of the Pacifier! One of my all time fave ships... THough it does have that "Cylon raider" feel from the original series.
| Quote: | | It's important to remember that, atleast during the Rebellion period, the only faction that fielded primarily hyperdrive-equipped fighters was the Alliance. The Empire's doctrine was that fighters were supposed to support the army or the navy instead of operating independently, and everyone else was dependent on older technology. The only in-story use I've seen of a CloakShape with a hyperdrive sled had it using a hyperdrive ring, ala the Jedi starfighters in the prequels. I think contract transportation would be the only way to go for a non-Jedi starfighter pilot, because only a Jedi's use of a Hibernation trance permits them to make long distance trips. For everyone else? Well, an X-Wing may have a week's worth of consumables, but that certainly doesn't mean that the pilot won't go nuts if he is stuck in a box the size of a closet staring at hyperspace for a week. |
Another good point. I have had some pc's who purchased Y wing long probes, and took out the extra seat, to make room for an expanded cockpit so he could have the seat recline during hyperspace. And others make 'docking ports' taht the cockpit sat in, on freighters...but while docked, don't expect the freighter to be doing more than lasy turns or go straight..
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
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Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Sun Mar 20, 2011 5:43 pm Post subject: |
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| atgxtg wrote: | It's a good theory, but...
Repulsorlifts drop of in efficiency with gravity. That is they need a gravity well to push off of. At least that is what the rulebooks say.
However, what if starships generated a gravity field for the repulsorlifts to "push" against? That would explain the atmospheric turning. But...
That would cause some difficulties with hyperdrives. Although...that might explain why so many fighters aren't equippmed with them. Maybe the ships have to have more advanced/experienve g-field generators that can cut out when the hyperdrive kicks in. |
There are a lot of different factors to consider. A ship's acceleration compensator and artificial gravity appear to work just fine when the hyperdrive activates (reference Home One jumping to hyperspace en route to Endor, with Mon Cal crewmen just standing on the bridge as they jump), but its not like a ship is generally doing a lot of maneuvering immediately prior to a hyperspace jump. Repulsorlifts might need gravity to push against as a drive system, but that doesn't mean that other gravity manipulation systems are similarly limited.
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
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Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Sun Mar 20, 2011 5:56 pm Post subject: |
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| garhkal wrote: | | Ahh.. a fellow lover of the Pacifier! One of my all time fave ships... THough it does have that "Cylon raider" feel from the original series. |
Actually, I wish it looked more like a Cylon Raider than it does. I've always had a hard time wrapping my head around how the ship would look from the side, front or rear, mostly because of that weird looking cockpit. I like the Pacifier for its stats; I just wish it looked cooler, and taking visual clues from a Raider actually makes me like the ship more.
The obvious mods would be the switching the port and starboard laser cannon so that they can fire forward (and linked, possibly), plus some hull armor upgrades (maybe just to 1D, which would make the Pacifier about equal to a B-Wing for damage capacity).
| Quote: | | Another good point. I have had some pc's who purchased Y wing long probes, and took out the extra seat, to make room for an expanded cockpit so he could have the seat recline during hyperspace. And others make 'docking ports' taht the cockpit sat in, on freighters...but while docked, don't expect the freighter to be doing more than lasy turns or go straight.. |
I thought on the Longprobe that the rear seat was replaced with the navicomputer.
X-Wings and the like may be cool, but they're really rather useless for long term missions, especially when you start to factor in maintenance costs and the like, plus the fact that you can't fly an Alliance starfighter into a system with any kind of Imperial presence without attracting attention. I have always preferred other combat vessels like armed scout ships and the like. The one I'd love to see would be a an SF-Scale Skipray blastboat, but no fighter pilot wants to take an automatic -6D scale penalty to Maneuverability in combat.
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.
The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index
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garhkal
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| Posted: Sun Mar 20, 2011 11:34 pm Post subject: |
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If i can find the link, i have seen one site with great pics of the interior (maps)..
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Henrik.Balslev
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| Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2011 6:09 am Post subject: |
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| garhkal wrote: | Ahh.. a fellow lover of the Pacifier! One of my all time fave ships... THough it does have that "Cylon raider" feel from the original series.
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Funny you should mention the Cylon Raider. I've been toying with having a character creating a scout/space transport sized ship based on the newer version of the raider 
I'm thinking something with two levels, one passenger- and one cargo-level but so far I havent done anything with it
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atgxtg
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| Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2011 3:08 pm Post subject: |
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| crmcneill wrote: |
There are a lot of different factors to consider. A ship's acceleration compensator and artificial gravity appear to work just fine when the hyperdrive activates (reference Home One jumping to hyperspace en route to Endor, with Mon Cal crewmen just standing on the bridge as they jump), but its not like a ship is generally doing a lot of maneuvering immediately prior to a hyperspace jump. Repulsorlifts might need gravity to push against as a drive system, but that doesn't mean that other gravity manipulation systems are similarly limited. |
Yeah. That i one of the pitfalls with SciFi technology. We are already warping the laws of physics, o it is hard to know where the limits are. I doubt any theory i going to hold up under scrutiny. |
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CRMcNeill
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Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2011 3:53 pm Post subject: |
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| garhkal wrote: | | If i can find the link, i have seen one site with great pics of the interior (maps).. |
I'd like to see that, so long as it isn't the one from Colonial Chrome. His interior layouts never seem to make sense to me (a bowling alley on a Guardian-Class Light Cruiser?)
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.
The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index
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CRMcNeill
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| Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2011 3:56 pm Post subject: |
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| atgxtg wrote: | | That i one of the pitfalls with SciFi technology. We are already warping the laws of physics, o it is hard to know where the limits are. I doubt any theory i going to hold up under scrutiny. |
Plus, IIRC, the original idea of repulsorlifts requiring a gravity field to push against was from the original Star Wars novel, which completely ignored sublight engines (i.e. repulsorlifts and sublight drives were rolled into one drive that only worked in the presence of a gravity field, while hyperdrives only worked in zero-gravity). We seem to have moved somewhat beyond that.
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.
The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index
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Bren
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| Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2011 6:50 pm Post subject: |
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| crmcneill wrote: | | Plus, IIRC, the original idea of repulsorlifts requiring a gravity field to push against was from the original Star Wars novel, which completely ignored sublight engines (i.e. repulsorlifts and sublight drives were rolled into one drive that only worked in the presence of a gravity field, while hyperdrives only worked in zero-gravity). We seem to have moved somewhat beyond that. |
We can't ignore it. It's canon!
Sorry, I couldn't resist. I guess I failed my willpower roll. |
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garhkal
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| Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2011 7:32 pm Post subject: |
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| crmcneill wrote: | | garhkal wrote: | | If i can find the link, i have seen one site with great pics of the interior (maps).. |
I'd like to see that, so long as it isn't the one from Colonial Chrome. His interior layouts never seem to make sense to me (a bowling alley on a Guardian-Class Light Cruiser?) |
I think it might have been C.crome.
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atgxtg
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| Posted: Wed Mar 23, 2011 11:32 am Post subject: |
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| crmcneill wrote: |
Plus, IIRC, the original idea of repulsorlifts requiring a gravity field to push against was from the original Star Wars novel, which completely ignored sublight engines (i.e. repulsorlifts and sublight drives were rolled into one drive that only worked in the presence of a gravity field, while hyperdrives only worked in zero-gravity). We seem to have moved somewhat beyond that. |
True. Another case of something evolving over time. Plus. It'S not like Lucas was trying to make things logically consistient. He was just trying to make a movie, or three, or six, plus one or five TV series. He doesn't need to worry about players trying to make sense out of it all. |
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