On Oct 15, 2009, at 3:47 PM, Jon Lang wrote:
I'm thinking of trying a space opera setting where the distinction
between
interplanetary travel and interstellar travel is merely one of
scale, not of
type. In particular, I want the standard drive system to be a
gravity drive
that uses a version of Alcubierre's "warp bubble" theory to ignore the
lightspeed barrier. Interstellar travel would involve a ship
accelerating
halfway to the destination system, then decelerating for the second
half of
the trip. This same drive system would be used for interplanetary
travel
and for combat maneuvering. OTOH, I'm thinking that gravitational
tidal
forces might interfere with it, thus keeping it from being usable for
planetary takeoffs and landings.
I'm thinking of keeping the accelerations reasonably low, on the
order of
single-digit G's (figure a thrust-to-mass ratio of, say, 100N per kg
for the
drive system), and I'm figuring that the tidal forces that occur in
low
Earth orbit are sufficient to disrupt the drive. What are the
implications
of these assumptions?
My first thought is this means the drives will interfere with each
other.
Similar to the jet wake from a modern air plane, the drive would
create a gravity wave which interferes with other nearby drive
systems. You would need clear flight lanes in order to operate the
drives, and want to define what happens in the presence of 'bad
gravity'. Defining the failure mode will do a lot to define the setting.
The second thought is missiles are now just gravity drives set to over-
thrust such that they create these disturbances. Fire off a salvo of
Grav Missiles to interrupt the opposing ship's drives. The other ship
presumably must out maneuver the disturbance or become disabled and
ready to be boarded. You might be able to fudge it such that boarding
actions between ships becomes practical.
The combats will be about knocking the other ship's drives out and
matching speeds so that you can come along side.
I think you need a way to detect Grav at FTL speeds in order to be
able to operate at those speeds. This works well with the idea of Grav
Missiles, now your detection system is Nav and Tracking.
-Bret
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