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Post by Sojourner on May 17, 2004 13:49:25 GMT -5
Who says they're solid? I'm talking only a few dozen nucleons thick, here...
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Post by Kage2020 on May 17, 2004 17:03:31 GMT -5
Even that spread out over the entire surface area is going to be a horrendously significant mass. Kage
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Post by Destecado on May 18, 2004 13:49:23 GMT -5
Destecado... I'm afraid that the description you offer doesn't really do it for me. Was it all or part of the description that you did not agree with? A little more feedback would be usefulf for refining the concept. Could the sails be part of a gravitic drive system? Here is a tasty tid bit from the Traveller Library that describes grav modules and thruster plates. We know that the eldar make wide spread use of anti-grav technology, is it not logical to assume that there space ships might also work off of similar principles or be rooted in similar technology?
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Post by Kage2020 on May 18, 2004 16:48:46 GMT -5
Was it all or part of the description that you did not agree with? A little more feedback would be usefulf for refining the concept. It was the overall sense of it... I'm really not keen on having the sails as particle emitters. With the rest of the eldar technology... I don't know. And, yes, I'm biased into 'grav drives' for the eldar. Minister's B5 approach - though it has been suggested before - just strikes me as 'right'. If one wishes to introduce 'gravity' waves related to the mass of stellar phenomenon that would also be interesting and potentially replicate the 'solar wind' for an eldar ship close to a massive body, but even then I'm not sure... I still prefer the idea of contra-grav/reactionless thruster combinations, but I also love the sail imagery... Could the sails be part of a gravitic drive system? Again, that's what I'm biased towards. While I'm not particularly for the cludged 'solar wind' thing with 'gravitons' (or whatever), it would be an appropriate way of replicating this across the game systems... Hence the suggestion above. Here is a tasty tid bit from the Traveller Library that describes grav modules and thruster plates. <sigh> Gotta love Traveller for some things... We know that the eldar make wide spread use of anti-grav technology, is it not logical to assume that there space ships might also work off of similar principles or be rooted in similar technology? I find it so. At this point GW would, for me, be somewhat over-concerned in the image rather than the actuality and the cross-application of other technologies. Kage
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Post by zholud on May 19, 2004 10:50:51 GMT -5
Ok, having some spare time, so going to discuss 4 variants of sails/pseudo-sails I’ve made. First of all, I totally agree with the Kage estimation on 11 kg of thrust but I’m sure they do not use visible sails, so calculations are a little bit off. So, ideas: 1. The most unlikely one first. Eldar found the way to decrease the mass of the ship (i.e. true anti-grav), and thus even small sails are enough to move them around. I don’t like this just because if Eldar had such technology, they’d ruled the universe. 2. Sails on models are not sails, but generators and directors of fields that are actual sails. The area of those sails may be large enough to give necessary thrust. This variant is my favourite. 3. The sails on ship are it truth anti-matter creators, particles from solar wind hit antimatter and you get you antimatter drive, but matter comes from outside and antimatter isn’t stored but constantly produced. I see several problems with this approach, but still… 4. The sails are tiny warp-portals to web-way. Other side of the web-way is directly upon the star. From information I recall web-way is very resistant to any damage, so I guess it can be situated right behind even heart of the star. The fact that ship is moving is of small importance – planets where portals located also move, rotating… and Craftworlds move as well. The problem why the thrust depends on movement vector and star destination is aesthetical – Eldar fight entropy and are very environmentally friendly, so they prefer that star energy go as it supposed to i.e. outside the star. BTW this means that that sails are in reality reversed. On idea of using gravitation forces – from what I recall they are rather weak, in the sense that photon thrust is better than graviton, or BTW neutrino thrust.
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Post by Destecado on May 25, 2004 17:32:19 GMT -5
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Post by Dazo on Jul 11, 2004 1:57:39 GMT -5
Right, how about this then, eldar build just about everything out of wraith bone, which only partially exists in this dimension the other half being part of the warp, might not they then be used not to catch a solar wind but a warp current, objects of high mass have an effect upon warp currents do they not, might not the sails be used to harness this disturbance. I have no data to back that up but to me it makes alot of sense so be kind in your critisism, and yes i know the fluff doesn't support this idea but at the same time it doesn't not support it and as some one once said "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"... ;D;)
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Post by Kage2020 on Jul 11, 2004 2:12:23 GMT -5
True, the 'fluff' doesn't really take a stance over than the "solar sail" argument. One potential argument is the thematic army consideration: you describe yet another FTL drive system produced by GW for the Jokaero.
Secondly, the warp currents in the canonical universe are broadly 'predictable' to limits... that's a neither for or against model. Though you are suggesting that warp currents originate in stars and flow outwards...
Thirdly, one would imagine that the relative flow 'speeds' between the universes could be problematic (i.e. structural stress, etc.)...
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Post by Dazo on Jul 11, 2004 2:26:32 GMT -5
[quoteTrue, the 'fluff' doesn't really take a stance over than the "solar sail" argument. One potential argument is the thematic army consideration: you describe yet another FTL drive system produced by GW for the Jokaero. .[/quote] I don't know anything about jokaero, so any similarity between my theory and their fluff is purely coincidental...and it wasn't intended as a FTL drive
I am? Well it wasn't entirely what i meant, i only thought that a star would/may effect the local warp currents around it and that the eldar might take advantage of that somehow
This would be a problem, why, wraithbone exists between universes aswell so the stress to the ships superstructure should be limited should it not
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Post by Kage2020 on Jul 11, 2004 3:05:55 GMT -5
Again, it's an interesting idea... I just don't know how it would work in terms of the 'fluff'...
I'll repeat it, but what about the 'grav-drive' idea whereby efficiency drops in a gravity field? ... Gravity waves or somesuch...
Problem with integrating this with non-spaceship technology, however...
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Post by Dazo on Jul 11, 2004 3:31:07 GMT -5
Ok well it was worth a shot
Gravity drive, do you mean like in event horizon or a more star trek approach as in warp drive. And yes, any large gravity well would have a detremental effect on any propusion system, much like in a jet engine where engine performance drops at high altitude but obviously the other way round for gravemetric propulsion the more gravity the less efficient it becomes, Is that what you meant
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Post by Kage2020 on Jul 11, 2004 3:33:32 GMT -5
It is a bit of hand-waving stating that it is 'gravity waves', or even the gradient of the space-time curve that does it... But it does make a form of sense. It also means that eldar 'atmospheric vehicles' will be based off different premises (i.e. just 'contra-grav' and no 'gravimetric thrusters'), but that would again be consistent (?) with the 'fluff'...
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Post by Dazo on Jul 11, 2004 3:45:32 GMT -5
I would say that the two systems were utterly different, eldar grav vehicles use "anti" gravity to lower their mass so that thrusters can be used feo propulsion, i see this as mearly a means of faster travel by avoiding harsh terrain, i mean making them all terrain vehicles
Gravity drive on a starship in my veiw, or my understanding of the term, is that a massive gravity generator(black hole) is used to fold or in some way alter the fabric of space time to facilitate the rapid movement of a vessel between one point in space to another instantly or very rapidly depending on how advanced it is
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Post by Kage2020 on Jul 11, 2004 4:46:19 GMT -5
So, that's basically consistent with the concepts that I work with. The eldar have 'contra-grav' technology which acts as a form of lift system: it negates the entire or part of the gravitational vector of a massive body. But you need a propulsion system to make the begger move... Erm, and 'grav drive' refers only to a drive system which involves, normally, gravity. It does not specifically refer to the FTL drive mentioned in Event Horizon... The suggested idea is that eldar spaceships utilise "reactionless thrusters". These produce 'thrust' (acceleration) but violate the law of conservation of momentum... Normal drives work by 'throwing stuff out the back' (i.e. reaction mass such as 'jet fuel') which, when you balance it with the energy of the vessel means that you come out with 0. With reactionless thrusters you don't... Now, this works wonders. It means that generally an eldar ship is going to 'outperform', be more manoeuverable, than a ship of the Imperium. That is to say that it can generate more 'thrust', although this obviously depends on the function of the ship in the first place. (There is no reason to suggest that an eldar 'freighter' is going to outperform an Imperium fighter or scout, for example.) The problem with this is that there is, at present, no real reason why you have the mechanic of the 'solar wind'. Thus linking it to gravity... "Gravity wells" are a common way of representing the effect of a massive body on spacetime. That is if you put a cannon-ball on a tightly-stretched elastic sheet it will cause the sheet to deform. You get a dip in the sheet. Put on a football and the dip you get is not as deep... The 'hand waving' mechanic here is that eldar 'space drives' relate to this 'dip', but inversely. Thus instead of a dip you've actually got a mountain (as if you were pushing underneath the elastic sheet). As an eldar ship heads towards a massive body, the efficiency of the drive decreases as a function of the distortion to space time and the proximity to the body: like me climbing up a hill, you get tired and slower the higher you go. Now, I can walk around the hill without too much problem, although I'm already tired from walking up to this point. Going down is much easier and, if I run, my speed actually increases (until I fall flat on my face, of course, traditionally just after wind-milling arms)... Thus with the suggested drive system... As you get closer to the body, your 'speed' drops as a function of distance (based upon the mass of the body): you get slower the closer you get. Go laterally (orthoganal to a line drawn from the centre of the body to an arbitrary radius) and your speed is 'stable' based upon how close you are in the first place. Go away from the centre of the body and your speed 'increases'... Obviously gravity is replacing the 'solar wind' with the above hand-waving replicating the rough effect. Further, it tacitly assumes that it is the worlds that people are going to fight over... Eldar shipdrive efficiency is going to drop as you get close to a world. As such, for the eldar, the 'low ground' of a gravitational well is even more damning. Where possible, the Imperium is best served by constraining the eldar close to gravitational large bodies... Or you could 'hide' from eldar by being close to said bodies... Etc. This seems, broadly, to be consistent with the 'fluff' with the caveat that the 'fluff' stance of 'solar sails' is patently unrealistic. You have the drop in speed in going one direction, and the increase in the other... thus it is consistent with BFG. It requires 'sails' as components (because we say it does) so that's consistent... And it also creates interesting possibilities, both in terms of grand strategy (wargame) but also for the RPG... And, incidentally (using Kage edit color privileges!), while this might offer a reasonable approach to the eldar, the nature of Imperium drive systems has yet to be determined. More in terms representation and transit times, of course.
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Post by Dazo on Jul 12, 2004 23:08:43 GMT -5
Yes, i thought the eldar used some kind of jet propulsion, hence the term jetbike, the contra grav system on ground vehicles is mearly to allow for greater speed and agility over all terrain
Ok remembering please my grasp of physics is at best tenuous can you explain this, and dose it have any thing to do with unified feild theorys, strings or zero point energy
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