Thomas wrote: > A propeller or a jet engine or a like - but would you like stand where the > jet or propeller that is capable to move (and brake …) a 40 ton vehicle > is blowing to? So what I should have said is that grav vehicles for the > mass (as personal vehicle in urban areas) would only make sense with vectored > thrust because of the desastrous side effects of jets or propellers (that > can be handled for large mass transports - see our airplanes) or the > uselessness of "frictioned" motion through pulling beasts or wheels (on a grav > vehicle!). A reactionless thruster would be an alternative, but I categorised > that under vectored thrust - even if this might not be correct from the > rules.
Hello Thomas, I think we're misunderstanding each other. Using the default 3E technology, vectored thrust (VE41) is available for many engine types. By default, TL11+ reactionless thrusters have no heat or noise, and since default contragrav appears only at TL12 it makes a lot of sense to assume reactionless thrusters along with the CG. But contragrav could come earlier, as in GURPS Traveller, and then you could have jet engines or ducted fans with CG. At GT TL8, jets or fans are more efficient than reactionless thrust. And both reactionless or reaction thrusters can be vectored or unvectored. Vectored thrust means 50% more weight and volume, so some designs could use non-vectored thrust and extra armor or payload. > A tank is not a personal vehicle, and we know that the military is always > willing to accept some collateral damage. But I doubt that a battallion of > 40 ton, jet engine thrusted grav tanks in an urban area would leave > something worth to defend - even without firing any shot … Would it be much worse than helicopters landing in a city? > Therefore I think that we can assume that grav tanks will always have > vectored thrust. This may be different for a gunship ... Make it "probably" rather than "always" and we can agree :-) I'm using vectored reactionless thrusters for my draft grav tank. Johannes wrote: > The question would be, if additional cost and payload for a turret is > greater or smaller then for vectored thrust. The turret is almost certainly much heavier than the vectored thrust. So the question remains if the turret brings other benefits to justify the weight. > Regardless which other vehicles become more or less viable due to the > tanks, i would consider it likely that the tanks will shoot at other > tanks. If tanks just fight tanks, there would be no reason to have them at all. If tanks wreak havoc in the rear areas or roll up infantry positions, you need both tank and anti-tank units. > And unless the tanks are forced by something to all operate on the > same height, that means shooting both upwards and downwards. I would guess that the most common altitude for grav tanks is "nap of the earth". Going higher might make sense for fast, long-distance flight, but it is a calculated risk if the enemy has hidden units to hit the unmasked flyers. Regards, Onno _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
