Glitterboy2098's Phaseworld Tech Manual

[glitterboy2098]

Recently there has been some requests about how things work in phase world, with technical descriptions. i can understand this feeling, as being told 'it just does' is not very conductive to suspension of belief and role play.

since there is no official techmanual, i have decided to write a fan one. much of this stems from my own attempts at planning a phase world game, so it should not be considered canon. that said, i have strived to keep my explanations consistant with the game, and not completely revamp anything. so these explanations should be useable in most phase world games with little adjustment.

in this series, i hope to explain, in plausible ways, the basic concepts and mechanics behind the technology of phase world. however, i will not be covering any magical systems, nor will i be covering most phase tech, as both utilize mechanics that cannot be easily explained. thesearticles will not be a 'Nuts and bolts' description of the hardware, but rather a look at the theory and concept. hardware is still up to the GM.



Episode 1: Contra-Gravitic drive
Contra-Grav drives are more common than sand in phase world it seems. every star fairing race makes use of them, and it sometimes seems that there are no other drives at all. (one has to import Aliens unlimited or Mutants in orbit to bring others in, in fact.)

the official explanation of contra-grav is 'canceling the pull of gravity, and thus removing the limits on velocity". this is deceiving. it neither explains how propulsion is achieved, nor explains why removing gravity should matter.

Contra-grav drives make use of "negative energy", an anti-gravity force. this energy is used to warp space, providing motive force. at sub-light speeds, CG drives merely expand the space behind them, riding the edge of the 'wave' so created. this expansion is short lived, and when leaving the area of effect for the drive returns to the normal state.

at faster than light speeds, the drive uses an Alcubierre Metric, expanding space behind the ship and compressing in front, creating a 'bubble' of space that becomes isolated from the rest of the universe. this bubble can propagate at extreme speeds unaffected by relativity. within this bubble, space is stationary, so the ship itself experiences no acceleration or deceleration. when the ships drops the negative energy field, the bubble merges back into regular space, and the ship drops out of faster-than-light speeds.

when near to a gravity well, like a planet or star, space is already bent by gravity. this prevents the creation of a faster than light bubble, due to the already twisted nature of the fabric of space. this 'interdiction zone' extends for a great distance around, and not only prevents the creation of a FTL bubble, but actually will cause one to collapse if it enters.

vessels in phase world are capable of traveling light years in an hour, a rate equal to 8760 times the speed of light per light year/hour. these rates, combined with a difficulty in adjusting an active FTL bubble, make maneuvering while in FTL difficult. the course of the bubble can be adjusted only small degrees at a time, which at the high speeds it travels at, makes FTL more or less a straight line affair. multiple stops and course corrections will usually be required to travel between destinations.
because ships in FTL cannot maneuver, avoidance of the interdiction zones created by a star systems sun, planets, moons, and asteroids becomes problematic. as a result, the use of FTL within a star system is limited, and usually vessels either approach from above a system, where they can travel at FTL directly to a destination, or will exit FTL at the edges of a system and make the final journey at sub-light speeds.

combat is possible at FTL speeds, but it requires the ships involved to merge their drive fields by matching velocities and course, and moving to within a kilometer of each other. as a result, combat while at FTL velocity is rare and dangerous.


a Repression field is an area where CG drives fail to operate. although the cause is unexplained, how it operates can be determined by the effects.
like an interdiction zone, FTL operation cannot exist. in addition, regular sub-light operation is impossible. this would seem to be a stronger interdiction effect than a planets or stars, but appears to follow the same principles. space is already warped, and to a point where artificial alterations have no effect. as these area's have no obvious source of gravity, it implies another cause. which might include folded space, natural fields of negative energy, dark matter, or other strong sources.

[taalismn]

Good idea, Good Start

[glitterboy2098]

i plan to cover forcefields next, followed by Phase drives, fold drives, sensors, and maybe the Aliens unlimited FTL setup.
i want to cover anti-matter power plants, but i'm having trouble figuring out how to make the reality of anti-matter wrap around the palladium portrayal.

[DhAkael]

Daaaaammmmnnn
That soo totaly makes sense now... mind you, it kinda precludes gravitons as an actual particle..but nice anyways

[glitterboy2098]

Most things make sense if you look at them right. It's just sometimes you have to look at them really, really cockeyed.

[KLM]

Good start, hope this makes its way to a separate website, collected.

Soo....

How precise is CG drive?

How often a ship have to stop and adjust course
in a lightyear? How long it takes?

How one prevents a ship goint to FTL (and how
one pulls one from FTL)?

And at last, but not at least, how difficult it is
to manouver at FTL? (by Darkmax).

Adios
KLM

[DhAkael]

nice work.

So you mean it is possible to change course while in FTL, but it is extremely difficult? Or do you mean it is impossible at the current level of technology in PW?

Turning radius would be something like 0.5 LY per 5 degrees of turn

[Braden Campbell]

ADDENDUMS:


A CG-field is projected out to a radius of 40' from the hull of the ship. This is the same distance as a variable force field when it is engaged.

The CG-field, when travelling at FTL velocities, replaces a variable force filed... so one cannot travel faster than light with the shields up. You can, however, go at sub-light speeds with full shields.

Force fields, as we have hashed out here on the boards, are porus: they will block directed energy weapons and kinetic attacks, but have no stopping power against gasses or liquids. They cannot therefore be used to replace or patch holes in the hull. If raised under water, the 40' gap between the hull and the shieds will fill with water.

All ships with a CG engine are technically fully transatmospheric. However, the size and design of the ship will preclude planetary landing for many craft, especially those of cruiser size or larger.

CG engines eliminate all G-Force stress on the crew.
______________________________________________________

Until Phase World Fleets is released, I think you could consider most of the above at least semi-official...[/b]

[Braden Campbell]

Most of them.

It makes boarding actions possible at FTL speeds.

[KLM]

The CG-field, when travelling at FTL velocities, replaces a variable force filed... so one cannot travel faster than light with the shields up.

Hmmm... This boggles me a bit.

So, what happens, when a ship going FTL meets a not-so-big
chunk of rock? Or someone detonates a fragmentation missile
just in the front of her?

Adios
KLM

[glitterboy2098]

what an odd shield set up. not incompatable with how i was going to explain shields though. just i would never have thought of such an artifact. mostly due to the fact that no such works had been suggested in canon before, and i was trying to avoid writing in a way that invalidated things.

as for G-forces, most of the drive set ups actually generate little at all. as both involved altering space, the vessel can move at high accellerations without ever actually moving much relitive to the space it occupies. in FTL, the vessel stationary to relitive to the space it occupies, and would fele no accelleration effects. space itself moves, and takes the ship along for the ride. as the far as the ship is concerned, it is not moving.


gadrin, i figured that internal gravity would be done in such a way that it would not interfere with the drives. no clue how that wold work though, but thats a techno-babble thing by any account.

as to the Gravitons, i am working on the assumption that the official description are simplified 'layman's' explanations. much like how if you ask an average person why a plane flies, they tell you it's wings generate lift, but cannot explain exactly how or why.

Gravitons are a 'gravity' particle, if you believe in such. in this case negative energy may be comprised of anti-gravitons. it is the end result with warped space that is important, not the ends by which such is achieved. in any case, negative energy is an anti-gravity force, which can be explained by using gravitons and their anti-particle.

thank you for the refresher in phase drives, it's been a bit since i read that book thoroughly.

Darkmax wrote:
nice work.

So you mean it is possible to change course while in FTL, but it is extremely difficult? Or do you mean it is impossible at the current level of technology in PW? Smile Big Grin

Turning radius would be something like 0.5 LY per 5 degrees of turn Wink

pretty much. because of the fact that you are altering space at a substantial level, if changes can be made (remember, this is still theory in reality, i'm invoking a lot of handwavium here), they will be slow to propogate. one would have to turn the entire bubble and the distorsions all at one time, which would be a slow process. and with each second of travel at even 1 ly/h, you are crossing travel carries you across .00024 ly. or 15 AU's. in one second, you go the distance nearly equal to the distance of Uranus to the sun. in 2 seconds, you have covered a distance equal to the distance of neptune from our sun.
in a mere 5 seconds, you can cross our entire solar system.
at such speeds, any alteration to a course will be a long, shallow curve. if you have ever watched an airshow, you will know what i mean. a plane at high speed cannot turn sharply, but must arc around a large area in its turn. but a plane flying at a much slower speed can turn very sharply, in a smaller area. Turning radius is a factor of velocity.

[glitterboy2098]

The CG-field, when travelling at FTL velocities, replaces a variable force filed... so one cannot travel faster than light with the shields up.

Hmmm... This boggles me a bit.

So, what happens, when a ship going FTL meets a not-so-big
chunk of rock? Or someone detonates a fragmentation missile
just in the front of her?

Adios
KLM

in the case of a big rock, the rocks gravity will collapse the field, dropping the ship out of FTL and into a stationary position relative to the rock. (it would be a close thing though, only a few kilometers or so.

in the case of a fragmentation missile, that is why all ships are armored.

i figure however that part of the space compression in front will be a guide to move debris like dust, rocks, and other such small particles aside.

[KLM]

in the case of a big rock, the rocks gravity will collapse the field, dropping the ship out of FTL and into a stationary position relative to the rock. (it would be a close thing though, only a few kilometers or so.

How big it must be? Just an educated guess...

Another thingie...

I always used that shields are pulled up in the front, while going
FTL. This acts as a deflector, and the value of the ships shields
is a factor in determining FTL speeds.
(Like if you go too fast, shields will be depleted by particles
faster, than they are able to be regenerated).

Adios
KLM

[glitterboy2098]

yep. look at the set up though. even if a 1 degree course change can be attained in 1 second (rather optimistic, according to theory, but this is sci-fi), that 1 degree will be over 15 AU. practically a straight line if you plot it.

assuming a 180 degree turn, continuous, it would take place over a distance of 2700 AU, or .0426 light years. all in 2 minutes.

and that just moves you to the reverse direction. to get back on the original bearing (just the opposite direction) would require additional maneuvering.

and that is at only 1 ly/h. at the 6 ly/h speeds most ships in phase world seem to be able of hitting, that means these distances are multiplied x6.

[glitterboy2098]

in the case of a big rock, the rocks gravity will collapse the field, dropping the ship out of FTL and into a stationary position relative to the rock. (it would be a close thing though, only a few kilometers or so.

How big it must be? Just an educated guess...

that would be a function of gravity.
an earth like planet (assuming 1g surface gravity here) has an interdiction zone of 30,000km in radius.

lets use 951 Gaspra as an example, since it falls in the average size for asteroids.
Gaspra is a silicaceous (rocky) asteroid with dimensions of 18.2×10.5×8.9 km.
it has a surface gravity estimated to be .022 g's.
that means an interdiction zone 660 km in radius.

the smaller the world, the smaller the zone.

[KLM]

Err... A little more concrete pls...

For example, the ship's trajectory passes
throught a brick (10*10*30 centimeters )?

A house sized rock (10*10*10 metres)?

-----------------------------
Another question is, how precise is FTL?

I mean if I drop a capsule (an ounce or so) in
interstellar space, how far can I "warp" to it?
(Just for the examples sake: no significant gravitiy wells
around).

Adios
KLM

[glitterboy2098]

Err... A little more concrete pls...

For example, the ship's trajectory passes
throught a brick (10*10*30 centimeters )?

A house sized rock (10*10*10 metres)?

as those are relitively low mass, and their gravitational effect is slight,they wouldn't bring you out of FTL. they'd probably be shunted around the bubble by the warping effect.

-----------------------------
Another question is, how precise is FTL?

I mean if I drop a capsule (an ounce or so) in
interstellar space, how far can I "warp" to it?
(Just for the examples sake: no significant gravitiy wells
around).

thats up to the GM, i'm afraid.

[glitterboy2098]

episode 2: Shields

Shields are a staple of science fiction, and for good reason. without shields, battles would be much more lethal, not a good thing when trying to do drama. it is one thing to struggle for your life, it is another to have every battle result in your turning into vapor clouds.
very rarely do you see any description of how shields operate. usually that is because the writers do not work it out. but with a little logic, we can figure it out.


for phase world, there are two common types of shielding. both are variations of the same design. first is what i refer to as 'unifield' sheilds, a single sheild that covers all angles. the second is variable sheilds, which divides the sheild into 6 sections that can be varied in strength.

shields operate using similar contra-gravity technology as the star drives. negative energy is used to warp space in front of an incoming beam or projectile, repelling and dispersing it's energy. lasers, plasma, and particle beams are stopped and dispersed, scattered by the shield. projectiles such as rail guns, kinetic impactors, and cannon rounds impact the 'wall' of negative energy and shatter themselves apart, the pieces scattered. missile explosions have aspects of both types, and are stopped the same way. an incoming missile hits the 'wall' of negative energy which causes it to explode, and the resulting energy and fragments are repelled and scattered.

now, shields are not continuously up. shields are actually generators capable of creating 'point' barriers of negative energy, which are not activated until incoming weapons are detected. sensors detect weapons fire directed at the ship, and active the 'shield' generator which creates the negative energy wall in its path a set distance away. this generator draws power from a capacitor, and each use drains a small amount of energy from the capacitor bank. once the energy is gone, the generator no longer operates, and thus the 'shields' do not protect the ship. capacitors can be recharged, but very slowly, too slow to provide much use in combat. because shields draw power only intermittently, Capacitors are required to make the system work. without capacitors, a ship would either suffer sever power spikes and brownouts when sheilds are active, or would always put out a negative energy field, which would rapidly burn out the generator due to excessive power draw. Capacitors are needed to buffer this.

the difference between a unifield and a variable shield is in the number and design of the generators and capacitors. unifield shield has a single generator designed to provide coverage for the entire ship, drawing from a single set of capacitors.

a variable shield uses 6 generators, each drawing from a set of cross linked capacitors. each generator covers a specific section of the ship (above/below, port/starboard, bow/aft, typically). defensive strength of the shields can be increased in one section by routing power from additional capacitors to that generator, at the expense of reducing power to another section. in this way, the shields can be 'reinforced' to provide additional protection.


because shields are reliant on sensors to activate, some safety locks are built in. an environment with to much material, such as in an atmosphere or underwater, will not activate the shields. the computerized sensors are designed to ignore ambient conditions, and will only notice dangerous incoming objects or energy. (a starship could fly through a storm, and the hull would get very wet. but if hit by lightning, the shields would protect it.) this is a result of how danger is calculated. (one peculiarity of some production models is a velocity setting. the sheild can be set to ignore slow moving objects relative to the velocity of the projecting ship, and only stop high speed objects and energy. this is because the slower the object compared to the ship, the less likely it is to do damage. this energy saving feature is most common on civilian vessels. it is perfectly possible to 'walk through' such sheilds, when bullets or energy blasts are stopped.)


because shields use the same negative energy as contra-grav drives, shields cannot be activated while traveling faster than light. to do so would interfere with the Alcubierre bubble, causing it to collapse and the ship to drop out of FTL. this is one of the automated safeguards in both systems. if these safeguards are removed, activating sheilds while in FTL has a chance of damaging the ship or throwing it way off course.

(GM's comment: weapons hitting shields would cause a slight shudder due to transfer of momentum. the ship is shooting out anti-gravity to deflect fast moving objects. this means the ship is connected to the incoming objects and will absorb some of the velocity as they are stopped and pushed away, as per newtons laws. however, because energy beams and weapon projectiles tend to be low mass, the greater mass of the ship tends to buffer this absorbtion of momentum, resulting in very little effect. i'm afraid that classical 'shake the camera' images from Sci-Fi are unlikely, except in cases of things like super-nova's [where they usually end with vaporization as the sheilds fail....] )

[glitterboy2098]

of course that "removes it from normal time/space" which according to the FTL Sensor description is what happens when something moves FTL when you think about it. It "disturbs the time/space continuum" so it could find a way to get around something by moving so fast it can't collide with anything. One could say that normal physics don't apply which is really the whole basis for FTL.

actually, with an Alcubierre metric, the bubble of space is isolated from the regular universe, so it does 'remove you from normal time/space.' it isolates the space you are in, and passes through normal space. since the two are only barely connected, you do not really pass through space, despite actually traveling through it.

imagine a drop of water forming out of a pond, skimming over the surface, and then sinking back in.

[glitterboy2098]

now, shields are not continuously up. shields are actually generators capable of creating 'point' barriers of negative energy, which are not activated until incoming weapons are detected. sensors detect weapons fire directed at the ship, and active the 'shield' generator which creates the negative energy wall in its path a set distance away...

I'm just curious at what point do you determine the threshold for when shields won't function, meaning something not moving fast enough to be a threat.

The Silverhawk has a shield penetrator which I take to mean simply cancels out any force field it comes in contact with, but what about a spaceman space walking over or floating over.

Do you see it as Mach 1 or 20 MPH or something ?

its a GM's call. in my mind, a thrown rock isn't a threat to a stationary ship. but a cannon round coming in at super-sonic speeds would be. but a 9mm round at the same speeds probably wouldn't. an asteroid moving only a few Km/s different from the ship likely would. the 'thresh hold' would vary by mass and velocity, so trying to pin #'s to it is difficult.

the best guide would be that if it's moving under a few MPH compared to the ship, it won't register as a threat. or if it doesn't look to be hitting the ship.


as for the silverhawk, shields work by tossing anti-gravity around to deflect attacks. a silver hawk would likely register as dangerous if it's flying around a ship. (especially a military one, with military grade shields)
to pass through, all it would need to do is generate an anti-gravity field of its own around itself, negating the field generated by the shields.so the shield tries to push it away, but has no effect.
whether you can mount such gear on missiles is up to the GM.

[glitterboy2098]

as for the silverhawk, shields work by tossing anti-gravity around to deflect attacks. a silver hawk would likely register as dangerous if it's flying around a ship. (especially a military one, with military grade shields)
to pass through, all it would need to do is generate an anti-gravity field of its own around itself, negating the field generated by the shields.so the shield tries to push it away, but has no effect.
whether you can mount such gear on missiles is up to the GM.

??? not sure I agree with that especially since shields provide MDC, but I might be misunderstanding you.

the MDC value of a shield represents the energy usage to stop the shot. it's a vague, but simple mechanic. basically, lets say a sheild is given 200 MDC in the game stats. this means it's capacitors provide enough power to stop 200 MDC's worth of attacks.

in a more detail obsessive system, this might have actual energy values attached and require the players to calculate the actual momentum of each shot. in palladium, it is easier to just say "can withstand X MDC)

[shiiv-a]

one thing that still confuses me ... someone stated that 'boarding while in FTL will now be possible ...

why? ... why would any idiot NOT in their right mind wanna board at that speed? ...

once you leave the ship, the speeds are now at different states .. one is in a rapid forward motion .. the other is forward at a slower rate, but now at 90 degrees to the target hull ..
that would have the boarding party leaping into the void and seeing the vessels sweep past them and out of range.

its the SAME process of someone trying to hop from a speed boat to another while in a row boat.

someone care to explain THAT process in clearer terms for me? .. thanks

[KLM]

Shield:

Sticking to the theory, that shields are basically "antiwave"
generator, we need some FTL sensors for them... Or...

Well, every incoming attack, be it a projectile, particles
or an energy attack can be described as "waves" (in case
of projectiles, it is a wave - ripple if you like - in the
timespace) and we can use the "tsunami-analogy"
(ie. before the tidal wave, water pulls back from the shore).


OK, I probably won't get a Nobel Price for that

Now, we have to set a treshold of activation... Fortunately,
Palladium gave us at least the game mechanics - strike at -6.

As a side note, if the attacker manages to push his gun's barrel
in the side of the shielded foe, what happens when the gun
discharges?

----------

Silverhawk: well, this design is problematic. I mean it is
supposed to penetrate shields (and this means, that PA's
without this gadget cannot). Now, syncronising a nimble
space capable PA with a capital ship ain't that difficult...
...so according to the previous theory, most PA could do it,
but again, the Silverhawk is the only canon design which
is able to do it...
...and that contradicts with a few points of the "negative wave"
shields.

Maybe, just maybe, a limited AI is connected to the shields,
analysing threats (this piece of the shield system is NOT part
of the personal ff-s... Or at least only a verry dumb one is used)
so it pushes away would-be boarders.

On the other hand, creating a generator, which fools the
aforementioned shield-sensors is not wizardy, but probably
needs a significant amount of handwavium, if we do not want
this system appear on missiles, just on the Silverhawk.

Adios
KLM

[DhAkael]

one thing that still confuses me ... someone stated that 'boarding while in FTL will now be possible ...

why? ... why would any idiot NOT in their right mind wanna board at that speed? ...

once you leave the ship, the speeds are now at different states .. one is in a rapid forward motion .. the other is forward at a slower rate, but now at 90 degrees to the target hull ..
that would have the boarding party leaping into the void and seeing the vessels sweep past them and out of range.

its the SAME process of someone trying to hop from a speed boat to another while in a row boat.

someone care to explain THAT process in clearer terms for me? .. thanks

I think you refer to the part where the FTL field crosses each other when the ships are traveling at the same sped at a very close distance.

This is also the part where Star Trek's Transporter comes in ectremely handy... but, alas, we may not convert other sci-fi's technologies for our use on these forums.

Rifts Manhunter (though no longer in print) had transporter technology
So you're technicaly NOT stealing / converting

[glitterboy2098]

one thing that still confuses me ... someone stated that 'boarding while in FTL will now be possible ...

why? ... why would any idiot NOT in their right mind wanna board at that speed? ...

once you leave the ship, the speeds are now at different states .. one is in a rapid forward motion .. the other is forward at a slower rate, but now at 90 degrees to the target hull ..
that would have the boarding party leaping into the void and seeing the vessels sweep past them and out of range.

its the SAME process of someone trying to hop from a speed boat to another while in a row boat.

someone care to explain THAT process in clearer terms for me? .. thanks

within the FTL bubble, ships are not moving. in this system, what is moving is the space the ship is in.

so a boarding action in FTL would be 'merge the bubbles', and then the ships are stationary to each other. it would be like jumping from one anchored boat into another.


now, even if the ships were moving (say, they are using their STL drives), this is still not the case.
conservation of momentum dictates at an object in motion stays in motion, unless acted apon by an outside force.
so if you are in a ship going mach 5, and you jump out, you will still be going mach 5. you will appear to be moving slowly relative to the ship you jumped out of, but you will be moving at mach 5 compared to any stationary observer.
this is why astronauts on the shuttle can go EVA. they are moving at the same velocity as the shuttle, so they are not left behind.

so a regular boarding action would also be a case of matching speed and sending people across.

[Greyaxe]

I can see how making frequent traffic stops can be a great tool for adventure (pirates and such) however we simply state it takes one melee per 100 light years of travel to calulate the course. You will then make many course changes slowly over the course of your journey as you travel across your path to your destination. This means that while extrem;y long flights can take quite some time to calulate once you are in flight you dont need to stop until you reach your destination. Or for the sake of a quick escape make short jumps of 20 or so light years to get away before calculating a new course while at FTL speeds. There is no reason you cant change course or plot a new course at FTL speeds.

[Braden Campbell]

one thing that still confuses me ... someone stated that 'boarding while in FTL will now be possible ...

why? ...

Because the enemy's force fields would be down.

It's a contrivance to give space pirates a shot at capturing vessels and booty without blowing their target to smithereens. If ship A, loaded with refined killaryte is going 5 light-years per hour, and my ship B matches its speed, then it would be safe to EVA over (because the difference in the speed of the two ships would now be 0, it would be the same as if they were not moving at all) .

Of course, my ship would have to pull up to within 80' of ship A so that our CG-fields overlapped. It's a HUGE risk, but if you pull it off the rewards are great...

[KLM]

I suspect that shields would enjoy a modification/feature that would allow the ship to activate them on demand, so that boarding parties find a brick wall.

And we know, that forcefields are used to stop intruders
and contain stuff...

...and that the Silverhawk is unique in its capability to
be able to cross them...

...and OP intruders are stopped by forcefields, thought
OP object cannot be detected by conventional means...

...all this speaks against the "activates on demand"
"negative wave" shields.

Adios
KLM

[KLM]

...all this speaks against the "activates on demand"
"negative wave" shields.

Adios
KLM

no I mean every Rifts Operator out there that's run by a player character probably can customize something in some way/shape/form.

I think this would eventually lead to customization of shields so that they work by an on/off switch (not all of them everywhere). Now you've got a wall of force at your disposal.

Hmm... How long can you project that wall of force before it
exhausts your reserves?

If long enough, then most military ships will be equipped
by already "WoF" shields...

Adios
KLM

[glitterboy2098]

an OP only says that it can be stopped by a shield. not that it can be picked up by one.

for small scale uses (internal security, for example), you can afford to leave a shield running indefinitely. so a brig or safe might be shielded by an always on shield. this use would be low power draw, since you are not always deflecting stuff, and the system can be programmed to 'ramp up' if something hits it. and it's a lower power draw, since the area covered is smaller.



as an alternate, if you really want 'always on' sheilds, apply the same 'ramping' effect. sheilds that always generate a low power field when active, and that only strengthen when hit.
much of what i said above still applies (the low power field would be too weak to stop slower moving stuff)


the only thing that you loose in such a set up is the 'does not block air or water' canon, since even a low power field would be strong enough to repel liquids or gas.

[KLM]

the only thing that you loose in such a set up is the 'does not block air or water' canon, since even a low power field would be strong enough to repel liquids or gas.

Hmm... This "does not block air or water" stuff is canon only
in the case of personal force fields?

If so, they can be multi layered shields, where layers are not
closed, but overlapping.
-----------------------------------------------

Another issue is pressing a slow moving object throught the field,
which is very cinematic for a Dune-ish knife-fight, but not really
good for containtment fields.

------------------------------------------------

Maybe there are two kind of force fields? (Plus phase fields
and of course magic and psi).

The "negativ wave" and the "continous operation".

In the latter case, the forcefield is containing quite
an amount of energy, but since it does not interact
with the enviroment, keeping it up does not require
much energy. (A bit similar, when a superconducting
ring stores current for months).

Just a raw thoery...

Adios
KLM

[glitterboy2098]

ok, i think i'm going to need to adjust the writeup to add a description of the shield's sensors. i've had that issue bouncing around in my head for a bit, so hopefully i can solve some of the problems we've been debating.


what i'm thinking of is this:
the shields put out an ultra-low strength negative energy field as a 'proximity' detector. it's too weak to have any real effect anything (imagine the gravitational effect of a rock on your hand....), but the 'sensor' field generator is fine tuned to detect things entering this field by detecting the feedback caused by the negative energy's minute effect. they then immediately ramp up the strength using the standard generator to stop the impact a few centimeters farther in.
it's a passive system, and because it is essentially a ultra-low strength shield, it can detect things in an OPfeild passing through (since OP feilds interact with shields).

this means that missiles and projectiles with an OPfeild cannot be used as 'breacher rounds' to bypass shields.


basically, this hybridizes the 'always' on shield idea (which seems impractical) with the 'active defense' setup that works best with the stats.


-------
also, i hope to have the article on Phase drives/Fold drives up within the next few days. i've decided to combine the two into one article because they have many things in common explanation wise. (note: i will be covering both Robotech type Fold drives and traditional point-to-point 'jump' fold drives.)

[glitterboy2098]

ambient energy?

very low drain projection.

[glitterboy2098]

won't that take up too much...err... brain cells? At least for some people...

I get what you mean. It's like a detector that alert the forcefield sensor behind.

pretty much. like everything with shields, it's handwavium, (*waves hands* "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!"). since we have no real shields, we can 'handwave' into existence whatever we need to make them work, as long as it remains consistent and it makes at least some sense.

(technically, we have something 'like' shields. there has been some experiments in using plasma suspended in a magnetic field as a defense against particle weaponry, but it's all still mostly theoretical. and it would be useless against anything but plasma weapons and particle beam weapons.)

[glitterboy2098]

Episode 3: Robotech Fold Drives, Phase Drives.

these two drives have a lot in common, though they don't immediately seem like it. both make use of 'hyperspace', a higher level of space that includes our known 3D reality as well as several higher mathmatical dimensions. within this space, our 3D reality is compressed, 'folded' in on itself so that locations seperated by vast differances in regular space are actually quite close in multidimensional hyperspace. by generating the proper multi-dimensional feild, a vessel can translate up to this hyperspace, where it can 'pass through' our folded reality along the shortest path.

it is how these feilds are generated that differ between the drives. a Phase drive uses an unknown effect to effect the translation, as well as to sheild the vessels inhabitants from the effects of existing at multiple dimensions, effectively creating an isolated 'pocket' of 3D spacetime within the ship. while this leaves the crew of the ship feeling as if nothing is occuring, it limites the rate at which the vessel can travel to no more than 10 lightyears per hour.

Robotech Fold Drives use a 'hyperspatial' feild to obtain the same translation, but lack the safety systems found in a phase drive. as a result, they can travel much faster, but are subject to temporal and spatial displacement, and the crew onboard experiances a variety of visual and aural effects. in short, there is a chance the ship can emerge in the wrong location, and the trip takes longer or shorter than it should. in addition, the crew can experiance odd effects like blurriness of vision, and hearing strange sounds while in transit. one feature of the Fold drive that the phase drive lacks is the ability to extend the feild farther than the hull, to encompass a large region or multiple vessels, which are then pulled along with the vessel through hyperspace. Robotech Fold Drives are theoretically unlimited in maximum velocity, but power issues usually hold vessels to around 400 light years per hour max. most vessels are capable of only about half this rate. Fold drive feilds do not interact well with anti-matter power plants, and special modifications are required to ensure the safety of both systems while in use (usually duplicating the same safety feild effect as a phase drive, but not quite as effective or widespread.)

within the three galaxies, the chances of emerging in the wrong location are increased. this is partially due to the effects of contra-gravitic drives on the fabric of space. space is being changed minutely as the vessel passes through our 3D reality, increasing the chances of throwing it off course. because Phase drives operate at a much lower plane of hyperspace, they are less effected.


(note: the robotech fold drives described here are the ones depicted in the show. the popular notion of the ship actually artificially folding space will be covered as a 'jump drive' later on. feel free to choose the version you prefer.)

[Aramanthus]

That is an interesting ideas. I've been reading this as you've been putting it on the forum.

[Aramanthus]

Very logical! And I'll continue to read his stuff.

[glitterboy2098]

thanks guys. often when figuring out how to explain something, i feel like i'm just combining thermo and aerodynamics.*

to have my stuff called logical means i managed to do it right, since palladiums descriptions were anything but, and yet i had to ensure mine were at least similar in theme, to stay in canon. rather hair tearing at times.

updates will likely be a bit later in coming, i'm back at college and between classes, job, and writing a series of Rifts articles on something else, finding time to work this stuff up will be tricky.





*making hot air....

[Aramanthus]

Study hard! And make sure you have your priorities! This is not as important as finishing school! Although I know it's needed to stay sane!

[Aramanthus]

I'm sure you're just assuming you were going crazy. It's usually the teachers who are insane.

[glitterboy2098]

arrgh....

i had this long post all done, and then something reset and i had to log in again, causing me to lose it.





Episode 4: Sensors and communications.

rather than do a long explanation of convnetional sensors, i direct you to a superior source. Atomic Rocket: Space War: Detection. better than i could write it.


to sum up, Thermal is king, stealth is impossible, and the speed of light turns detection into history lessons.



but wait, science fiction to the rescue! according to palladium canon, phase world ships use 'gravity wave RADAR' as an FTl sensor. which makes no sense, because that's Gravity Wave RAdio Detection And Ranging, which is nonsense. at the least, it would be GWDAR, or GRADAR.

but Gravity waves are a poor effect to use. they are weak, pass right through things, and normally move at the speed of light. but we can handwave a fix.

the Gravitic Scanner (my term) uses a planar distorsion created by negitive energy, and sweep this plane across the sky around the sensor. when this distorsion crosses a gravity well (natural, or artificially created by a CGdrive or sheild), the distorsion changes, and the alteration causes reverberations that propogate faster than light back to the ship. in this way a ship can detect in realtime objects at great distances, and determain location, size, speed, ect. gravity scanners have an effective range of several AU, but provide real time detection within that range.


passive gravitic detectors pick up gravity waves created either by natual gravity wells interacting, or the unique FTL waves created by Contragrav drives and technologies. from the strength of the wave and the frequency, they can even determain speed, mass, ect. these unique waves move at 200ly/h, but even the most sensitive detector has an effective detecting range of only 10 light years. this sensor is most useful in detecting vessels travelling at FTL velocity, or plotting the locations of planets, asteroids, and ships within a system.




Communications wise, you pretty much have only 2 conventional options. Radio, and Lasers.

due to the speed of light, communications over vast distances will suffer massive lag issues, requiring recorded messages in most cases. real time communication is only possible over short distances, only a few light seconds. (1 light second = ~300,00km)

lasers are directional and nearly impossible to jam or tap, but suffer the same issues as Radio.


there has been mention of FTL communications in phase world, but no hard info (thankfully). so i invented my own.

Gravcomm uses the unique FTL gravity wave generated by CG drives to carry digital information. a gravcomm is little more than a modified CGdrive, designed to send information. the signals travel at 200 ly/h, but detection issues limit effective range to a mere 10 light years. Gravcomm is omnidirectional, and can be jammed with a properly set gravcomm (GravECM). unfortunately messages are restricted to recorded Data only, no realtime comm.

Fold Comm uses a fold drives Hyperdimensional feild to translate radio into hyperspace, allowing rapid FTL communications. (generally 10x faster than the ships fold drive) realtime comm is possible if the systems are close enough together to reduce lag to manageable levels.

Phase tranceivers are not communications devices, but use a system similar to a phase drive to translate a signal to hyperspace, where it acheives instant communications across a near infinite range. currently only a signal device to activate phasegates for travel to paseworld.



(i took some liberties with the communications and sensors, but these are essentually the same as canon, given the lack of canon info.)

[glitterboy2098]

One question though. Would the size of the gravimetric disturbance make a difference? If you are warping space, could you be stopped by an asteroid that is, let us say, 10% of the size of your ship? I would think that the gravitational pull of the asteroid would be insignificant enough to allow uninterrupted travel.

if its less massive than your ship, your drive is likely going to be able to push it out of the way.
if more massive, there would be an effect to drag you out.
and if you didn't, you'd hit the asteroid and your ship dies.

[KLM]

Hmm...

Gravcomm uses the unique FTL gravity wave generated by CG drives to carry digital information.

How much "information" it can carry?

Do not measure it in Megabytes... More like Gigawatts.
(=Mega-Damage )

Adios
KLM

[Aramanthus]

Or maybe it'll allow terrabytes of info transferred.

[Aramanthus]

Why not more? I could see a transfer rate higher than that.

[KLM]

Nope, my idea is a FTL laser cannon.

The only information carried might be like
"From the TGE with love" or something...

Adios
KLM

[glitterboy2098]

Nope, my idea is a FTL laser cannon.

The only information carried might be like
"From the TGE with love" or something...

Adios
KLM

not possible.

the information is tranmitted as the wave itself. not unlike how the wavelength and strength of a Radio wave can be turned into electrical signals, which become audio signals.
you can't send another type of energy along it, no more than you could piggyback a laser to a radiowave.
basically i was thinking that one strength of wave would be a 1, another would be a 0, and that info would be sent as binary data. (or trinary, you could add a third strength value) since the waves could be sent along a wavelength so small that you could burst transmit tons of data, it wouldn't even take too long.
jamming would be just sending a constant stream of either 1 or 0 only.

in theory you could send a laser through hyperspace the same way as radio is used in foldcomm, but you'd only be able to hit things in hyperspace.

Since there is a definition about sub-space, wouldn't sending comm signal through this space be better?.. Much faster and much more stable than sending matter through?

read the fold drive, then foldcomm. and it's called hyperspace.

CGdrives and the gravcomm travel through normal space.

[KLM]

Hmm... I guess there is a weak link in OUR communication.

Let me rephrase.

We have a device, which can make EM radiation (be it radio,
microwave or light) to travel FTL.

What if we do not use this apparatus for communication,
but as a weapon?

What stops us in accelerating the beam of a capital ship
laser canon istead of a comm laser?

What limits the amplitude (=strength) of the FTL wave?

Adios
KLM

[glitterboy2098]

Hmm... I guess there is a weak link in OUR communication.

Let me rephrase.

We have a device, which can make EM radiation (be it radio,
microwave or light) to travel FTL.

What if we do not use this apparatus for communication,
but as a weapon?

What stops us in accelerating the beam of a capital ship
laser canon istead of a comm laser?

What limits the amplitude (=strength) of the FTL wave?

Adios
KLM

ok, i think i see the confusion. your mixing the Gravcomm and the Foldcomm.

a gravcomm basically causes the fabric of space to vibrate, and these vibrations impart information.

foldcomm sends a signal into a higher dimension.


but lets look at using foldcomm the way your describing.

first, there is targeting. you have to know where the target is in the twisted realm that is our universe at higher dimensions. a ship can actively detect this to a degree, but not to any fine resolution. (otherwise the misfold table would not be needed)

second is getting the beam to hit the target. once in, the beam will stay in hyperspace, and would require another fold feild to bring it back. useful as a communications system, since your 'shooting; another ship with a foldcomm, but trying to hit an object in 3D space would be very difficult, and require some rather complicated staging.

it's just not practical


but if your looking for a FTL beam weapon, wait for the jumpdrive. intentionally folded space works so much better for this.

[glitterboy2098]

other than Copyright issues?

accuracy. Hyperspace is short for hyper-dimensional space, or space with more than the standard 3 dimensions+time. it's a mathmatical term.

Subspace usually refers to 'underlying' space, or some reality that coincides with our own. this could be hyperspace, or it could be something else.

as for CGships carrying a hyperspace comm system, it's not impossible. it's not efficent. a gravcomm system can be built into the CGdrive.

a Foldcomm is part of the fold drive. you can put a gravcomm on a folddrive ship, or foldcomm on a CGdrive ship, but it requires what is basically installing another small starship drive.


CG based drives and communications do not use hyperspace. they rely entirely on manipulating the fabric of space in our own 3D reality to obtain a result.

fold technologies are hyperspace technologies, and don't manipulate the fabric of space, but rely on the physics of 4+dimensions to acheive a goal.

(for example, the Barrier system in robotech might be a hyperspace feild that shunts energy [kinetic or other] into an isolated area of hyperspace, a hyperspatial singularity, if you will. too much too fast and it can't dissapate, and it backs up and spills back out the system. no gravity manipulation.)