Vector Rules / Inertial dampers

> Christopher Weuve wrote:
Status: RO

> On Oct 8, 1997 at 4:04:11 AM, Aaron P Teske <Mithramuse+@CMU.EDU>
wrote:
> > I think it depends on how your inertial dampers work. In the

On Tuesday, October 07, 1997 8:34 PM, Stuart Ford [SMTP:stuart@mag.com] wrote:
Status: RO

> only drawback is that the further you are away from the point of
make no
> surprise high speed maneuvers, lest your forward gunners become salsa.

Adding more faggots to the Burning Heretic of Vector Movement

What about inertial dampers then? The ships in FT must have them otherwise the
accelerations they make would liquify the crew. I don't know if anyone
has worked out the G force of a Thrust of +3 but I imagine its got to
be pretty high and if we take Star Trek or Honor Harrington then we're in the
region of 500g. You have to have inertial dampers or you're salsa.

If you have inertial dampers why can't you use them to remove your rotational
inertia?

sincerely

Excerpts from FT: 8-Oct-97 RE: Vector Rules / Inertial.. by Tim
Status: RO

Jones@Smallworld.co.
> Adding more faggots to the Burning Heretic of Vector Movement

<grin>

> What about inertial dampers then? The ships in FT must have them

> in the region of 500g. You have to have inertial dampers or you're

Hmm, Thrust of 3 is more likely to be on the slower side -- I imagined
~400 Gs was T2 (largest SDNs) so maybe 425 or 450 for T3. But
anyway....

> If you have inertial dampers why can't you use them to remove your

I think it depends on how your inertial dampers work. In the "Gateway" series
of books, for example, and Niven's Known Space gravity planar (which I think
was an inertial damper), they affected the whole ship, allowing for some
radical maneuvers or, at least, radical acceleration. Gateway ships
accelerated *past* the speed of light (neat trick), for example, by damping
out *everything*.

Honor Harrington's inertial dampers don't seem to work the same way. Instead,
they just seem to dampen the effects of any maneuvering on
whatever's inside the ship -- basically, it allows the ships to
accelerate at several hundred G's so that the story won't take too long.
^_-  I'm thinking of something along the lines of Star Trek/Star Wars
gravity generators -- ever wondered how come everyone could always
*walk*, even on board itty-bitty ships like the Falcon?  It isn't 'cause
they've plated the bottom of the ship with neutronium, that's for
sure....

Status: RO

> Adding more faggots to the Burning Heretic of Vector Movement

We can't work out the acceleration represented by 1 thrust point, as we don't
know the the mass represented by one mass, the distance represented by 1 inch
or the time represented by 1 turn. I did produce a working system that had 1
inch = 1000 km and 1 turn = about 20 minutes.

Problem is that the rotation and accelerations in FT take place in a time much
shorter than that of the turn. (Hence the results are instantaneous: if you
apply 4 thrust, your velocity goes up by 4 at once, not next turn.)

If we assume that the time for acceleration is about 1/10 of a turn
or 2 minutes then 1 thrust is about 0.7 g. So even Thrust 8 burns would be no
more than 6 g. well within the limits of human tolerance provided the crew are
strapped in, etc.

(Read 'The Reality Dysfunction' by Peter Hamilton, the first chapter on its
own has combat vessels moving around with 8g plus acceleratios and throwing
unmanned combat drones at each other at 40 g plus accelerations. No inertial
dampers here: the crew are strapped down and those passengers who don't get to
their acceleration couches in time are in trouble...)

In a setting with inertialess drives and artificial garvity then inertial
dampers would exist and would allow much higher accelerations.

But a vector movement system assumes that such technology does not exist.

(My personal game universe has some artificial gravity and does allow the crew
to move around during combat, but the drives are still reaction based and so I
use a vector movement system. Those races with better gravity control can
maneuver with higher thrust as the crew are better protected.)

> On Oct 8, 1997 at 4:04:11 AM, Aaron P Teske <Mithramuse+@CMU.EDU> wrote:

> I think it depends on how your inertial dampers work. In the

Smith and Trowbridge's geeplane drive works the same way, and functions as a
de fecto crash cushion as well. Panarchic boarding lances use shaped nuclear
charges to weakend the target ship's shields, then they overload the geeplane
and smash through. Even with the geeplane, they pull ten gees when they hit.

Pretty neat trick. 'Tis a shame that space combat in the series can't really
be gamed (because of a combination of tactical FTL and lightspeed sensors and
weapons), as this series has somee of the best space combat ideas I have ever
seen.

Christopher Pratt spotted the following in my message:

> Smith and Trowbridge's geeplane drive works the same way, and

> really be gamed (because of a combination of tactical FTL and

And then asked:
> what would the name of this series be...

The series is named _Exordium_, and the five books in the series are:
1. The Phoenix in Flight 2. Rule of Naught 3. A Prison Unsought 4. The
Rifter's Covenant 5. The Thrones of Kronos

> From my _Exordium_ web page [http://www.wizard.net/~caw/exordium.htm] :

> The best place to learn about the plot of the series is through the

> use of million-year-old technology and an alliance with the pirates of

> the Rifter Brotherhood. With his father imprisoned and his two older

> own. But the Avatar learns the same lesson Alexander the Great

This is NOT your standard Margaret Weiss, "galactic fuedalism"-type
novel, with the noble ruling family fighting the the evil forces of democracy,
and everyone running around with titles straight out of the middle ages. The

social institution are well-thought through, their is a *lot* of
political intrigue, an average on one spiffy space battle per book, a lot of
cool military concepts (such as the aforementioned boarding lances), and a
neat
background that involves such things as the Ban against self-aware
computers (created after humanity almost lost the war against the Adamantine
machine
intelligences), 7-km-long battlecruisers aremed with 1-km-long
skipmissile
tubes, and planet-level tesla shields which transfer the energy of
skipmissile attacks directly to the planetary crust.

Book 1 is very easy to find used, book 2 is impossible to find, book 3 and 4
can be found with a little difficulty, and book 5 is still in the stores. If
you think you are interested, I would buy book% *now* and worry about the
others later. And, if you find extra copies of book 2 some place, please let
me know -- I have multiple copies of the other books, so as to have
copies to give away, but I short a couple book 2s. My.sig has the information
for whom you can email to ask them to reprint the series.

I do have a minor word of warning: It takes about a hundred pages or so to
"get into" the story. I don't know of a single person who, having made it to
that point, wasn't totally hooked.

Sometime in the next couple of weeks I am starting an Exordium mailing list as
well.