Star Ship Troopers the book:
Star ships to get ya to the solar system and then drop ships or tubes or
like to get you to the surface.. Ablative and cacoon in like, much like a
mix of airborne but instead of being exposed to the reentry you are like the
weapons tubes that airborne and like used to or still use for heavier
things..
Space Viking, one ship jumps and then it lands but then has many things
inside to do speciffic missions.. But
Also could be one ship jumps/warps in and then it sits back outside of the
system and the drop ships and like come out and land..
Carriers and LSTs.. But alot of the ideas of how things was possible, was
based on then real world WW2 and like events.. Inchon and more..
I like Jump engines, jump 1 - 1 light year. and so on or ... Less chance of
combat in space between the system, unless you can meet the invaders in
space at their jump ponts, and jump points can't be just any where, since
gravity wells play havoc with them, so if you have a super nova in the route
between one and another system, you got to go around it or face coming out
in a bad way? Out of jump but how close to the super nova or black hole,
opps damn suction..
Yes the different way and means to get combat forces and type to the combat
site.. Says alot.
Band of Brother and like is easier to shoot and role play than Inchon
landing or like..
Odd fun is gliders and like? One ship provides the gravity field for a
warp/jump and it drags other ships in, much like in a way like how a glider
is dragged/towed to the landing site and then let go to land on its own..
Better than just normal parachute and even hang gliders and like.. and
easier than helos or like?
Artillery jump troops? Grin. or how much can a human handle, and be put into
a giant cannon to be shot across the planet to land and be like
airborne/mobile ? Grin..
Mike
Alaska
----- Original Message -----
From: "Onno Meyer" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, October 08, 2012 12:07 PM
Subject: [gurps] Shuttles, Lighters, Containers
A couple of answers to my last questions got me thinking ...
* Many fictional starships are capable of surface landing. It
helps to keep the special effects budget down, it saves the
screen time for a docking sequence, and it keeps the entire
crew together, exposed to the same risks (good for RPGs).
* Another common meme are shuttles and starships, or fighters
and carriers. The shuttle is a short-endurance vehicle for
atmospheric and orbital operations. The starship is a long-
endurance vehicle for orbital and interstellar operations.
The two vehicles meet in orbit, the shuttle is taken into
the starship, and cargo and passengers are moved from the
shuttle to the starship. Alternatively, the shuttle is
docked outside, but it will be empty during the flight.
Usually it will take many shuttle flights to load or unload
the starship.
Those are the common concepts. I tried them before ...
* Then there is the idea of a LASH carrier. The starship is
still a long-endurance, orbit-to-interstellar craft, but
it carries the payload within smaller craft. Key points to
separate this from the following concepts:
The LASH carrier is a complete starship, capable of STL
and FTL flight, and equipped with a complete bridge, etc.
The lighters are not starships, without FTL drive and the
necessary navigation systems, but they have the life
support endurance for interstellar flights.
* Taking this one step further, the starship is somehow
incomplete without the lighters. They contain essential
components for the orbit-to-interstellar part of the
flight.
- The lighters could contain the STL drive and perhaps
the power plant. The starship has only a FTL drive, and
this drive isn't precise enough for orbital insertion,
it can't operate without lighters.
- The lighters could contain life the support or quarters.
- The lighters contain the bridge and navigation.
Note that I wrote 'lighters', but it could well be just
one 'lighter'. That could simplify many design questions.
* Another step onwards, the starship makes no pretense of
being a ship. A STL spacecraft is equipped with a FTL
drive in a removable pod. (Using GURPS 3E, a TL11+
fighter probably has the reactors and power cells for a
decent hyperdrive).
* As a branch of the lighter idea, perhaps the starship
needs no STL drives. It has just FTL. Maybe a warp drive
only works beyond some distance from a star, and there
is no reason to take the warp drive any closer in, it
would be dead weight. Outside the warp distance, there
is no reason to use anything but the warp drive. That
would be the shuttle or LASH concept, replacing 'orbit'
with 'warp distance'.
The challenge with all of those concepts is to come up with
an explanation why the weight and complexity of a multipart
starship is worth the increased performance.
One problem is that stardrives are dirt cheap in 3E, and
-- if you ignore the power systems -- pretty lightweight,
too. If the power plants are shared between FTL and STL
drives, the LASH concept with a complete starship as barge
carrier takes a serious hit.
A way out may be what I've done recently, insanely fast
starships. The TL16 Fast Courier has a hyperspeed
multiplier of 80. Two years ago, when I wrote a TL15
navy, I thought that 25 or 30 were pretty hot for a
destroyer.
Fiction follows history: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbinia
Regards,
Onno
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