Star Drives

[Malakai]

Couple questions concerning the engines that are used on 3G starships.
1: What is their acceleration? example: can you go from floating to Mach 9 in a Scorpion in a minute? Melee round? Melee Action?

2: How long does it take to reach super-luminal speeds? Do they charge up for a few moments and blast off in one great burst? Is it gradual?

3: Is their any fuel / resource that is used up during flight? if so, how often does it have to be replaced?

4: (not concerning the ships themselves) How does one perform piracy in space if your target is moving some 8,000+ times the speed of light (thats 1 lightyear per hour or more)

More questions may follow

[DhAkael]

Couple questions concerning the engines that are used on 3G starships.
1: What is their acceleration? example: can you go from floating to Mach 9 in a Scorpion in a minute? Melee round? Melee Action?

Depends; Some ships / fighters I'd say "hell yeah..instant rocket ride!" while others I'd say maybe have an acceleration of about 25 to 50% of maximum speed per melee. Or you could use the (outdated) Heros unlimitted / Ninjas & Superspies speed rating system.

2: How long does it take to reach super-luminal speeds? Do they charge up for a few moments and blast off in one great burst? Is it gradual?

Again, it depends. Usualy I do the whole Starwars(tm cp, etc) thang and have it the enigines need at LEAST 15 seconds to spin-up enough charge to go FTL. Also, remember your calculations...jumping to FTL while near any large gravity well or miscalculating an exit point can result in one real bad day

3: Is their any fuel / resource that is used up during flight? if so, how often does it have to be replaced?

GM's call on this one...I have only found reference to fuel expenditure in "Mutants in orbit" and "Rifts Manhunter" (no longer in print), no fuel costs or expenditure has ever been mentioned in ANY of the Phaseworld books that I know of.

4: (not concerning the ships themselves) How does one perform piracy in space if your target is moving some 8,000+ times the speed of light (thats 1 lightyear per hour or more)

Simple...drop a singularity torpedo in the estimated path of your target:D . Most Tri-Gal ships have sesnors that can detect the bow-wave of an FTL craft, so have your gunner just time the warhead to burst just ahead of the ship, and the resulting gravitic shock will cause the targets Nav-comp to do an emergency 'drop-out', since it will think that there is a star / planet / LARGE asteroid in the ships' path.

[glitterboy2098]

Couple questions concerning the engines that are used on 3G starships.
1: What is their acceleration? example: can you go from floating to Mach 9 in a Scorpion in a minute? Melee round? Melee Action?

i'd say a melee action for every "mach", nice and fast, but not instant slingshot type effect.

2: How long does it take to reach super-luminal speeds? Do they charge up for a few moments and blast off in one great burst? Is it gradual?

1 melee would probably work, you might want to have a range. the larger the ship, the longer it should take. so a fighter could do it in 1 melee round, while a packmaster might need 2 minutes (8 melee rounds)

3: Is their any fuel / resource that is used up during flight? if so, how often does it have to be replaced?

gravitic propulsion. uses gravity to manipulate space itself. "inertia-less", so no, no fuel. a ship can run as long as it has a working powerplant.

4: (not concerning the ships themselves) How does one perform piracy in space if your target is moving some 8,000+ times the speed of light (thats 1 lightyear per hour or more)

you don't. cargo ships will be sticking to specific trade routes, with specific courses into and out of systems. so all you need to do is stake out these routes, and hit the ships as they come in. the ideal would be to find a system with no or minimal settlement, thats used for navigational checks. then you can hit them with little risk of the police or military hitting you.

[BigLEE]

Couple questions concerning the engines that are used on 3G starships.
1: What is their acceleration? example: can you go from floating to Mach 9 in a Scorpion in a minute? Melee round? Melee Action?

Using MACH numbers in space doesn't make sense. Nor does limiting ships to a specific velocity. Just convert the MACH numbers to G's of acceleration.

But, frankly, trying to apply even basic physic to the Palladium system is just going to give you migraines.

[Esckey]

Applying basic physics to anything is going to give ANYONE a headache

[Malakai]

In response to the queston of "fuel", even nuke reactors have fuel rods and other ancilary materials that need to be cycled and replaced. This is what I was going for.

Senod, for the person who brought up singularity missiles, those are fairly new, so how was it done before? If a ship can go to FTL in a melee round or two, that means the target MUST be nuetralized in that short span of time. Any other i
deas?

[DhAkael]

Second, for the person who brought up singularity missiles, those are fairly new, so how was it done before? If a ship can go to FTL in a melee round or two, that means the target MUST be nuetralized in that short span of time. Any other i
deas?

Use a BIG artificial gravity generator (or have the resident operator/psi-mechanic/techno-savant) re-wire a gravity gun to just project a gravity field in front of the target ship that's already in FTL (thus the use of the FTL detection system in most 3-gal ships; gives you time to set up).
As it is implied; piracy in a FTL universe takes a LOT of pre-planning and thinking outside the box...
Or stealing idea's from other sources Can anyone say "Imp. Interdictor?" Good, I knew ya could!

[Malakai]

To the post before last, I was referring to the fuel rods, which are used to gather excess neutrons in a nuclear reactor. while the reactor may be able to function for years, the rods must be replaced much more often, not to mention the maintainance

to the previous post,
Yes, in the game i'm running, I have worked out a way for a ship to use their FTL systems to project an artificial gravity well, a la (0some copyrighted ship). I was asking to see if there was any other info out there, as well as to see how other's run it in their game.

I believe there has to be some way of stopping a ship in FTL and preventing them to leave because otherwise attacking you enemies would be ridiculously easy. It's just that I have not found anything in the books.

keep the thought coming. I also started this query to see about other's thoughts on the FTL drives in 3G

[Gomen_Nagai]

you may want to read AU GG or TMNT GG: they have Energy suppressors and all sorts of things. PW 3G Book mentions the perils of FTL.
and why it's not a good idea to fight at FTL

[DhAkael]

to the previous post,
Yes, in the game i'm running, I have worked out a way for a ship to use their FTL systems to project an artificial gravity well, a la (0some copyrighted ship). I was asking to see if there was any other info out there, as well as to see how other's run it in their game.

I believe there has to be some way of stopping a ship in FTL and preventing them to leave because otherwise attacking you enemies would be ridiculously easy. It's just that I have not found anything in the books.

keep the thought coming. I also started this query to see about other's thoughts on the FTL drives in 3G

Artificial repression-field (Anvil galaxy book) in either a wide beam weapon, or mine
Problem is; it would also effect the poor pirate using the device..but hey, it's all the price of doing buisness