Questions while writing

[robkelk]

Opinions, please, before I write something that tramples the setting's unspoken assumptions...
1) If your ship tows something, how does the towed item count toward your ship's mass, and thus its maximum speed?
(If the towed item doesn't count toward the ship's mass and top speed, then the Virgil Samms could put every other courier out of business by towing cargo containers around at 0.2c...)

2) How closely can ships stay in formation? Do the drives interfere with each other so ships have to have a noticeable minimum separation, can two ships touch while under full power, or something in between?

2a) How easily can two ships tow the same object? Is it simply a matter of hooking two tow cables to the object, or do the ships' engines need to be specially tuned to within 0.000000001% of each other's performance, or something in between? Or is it possible at all?

3) Is the standard ship's "speed" drive a gravity-effect drive of some sort?
(I know we were discussing this, but I don't recall coming to any consensus... The two extremes: If all the "speed" drives work on the same principle, then the 'Danes should be working on replicating the operating principles with hardtech. If they're all different, then ship repairs may be nearly impossible for lack of parts. Where on the sliding scale do we want to sit?)

-Rob Kelk
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[M Fnord]

On the subject of towing, unless somebody has a huge desire to make stuff overly complicated in the name of 'quirks,' I'd say treat it like ordinary nautical towing operations.

---

3) Is the standard ship's "speed" drive a gravity-effect drive of some sort?
(I know we were discussing this, but I don't recall coming to any consensus... The two extremes: If all the "speed" drives work on the same principle, then the 'Danes should be working on replicating the operating principles with hardtech. If they're all different, then ship repairs may be nearly impossible for lack of parts. Where on the sliding scale do we want to sit?)

---

I've been working on the base assumption that the speed drive works on some sort of gravity effect, and that the effect isn't reproducible with hardtech short of the larger CERN particle colliders. Beyond that we start to get into the whole quirk thing, which makes answers... fuzzy.---
Mr. Fnord
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[CattyNebulart]

1) I would say yes. There are plemnty of cargo containers hauled by vehicles being dragged around in fenspace and they count. The drive fields must encompass the entire objet.
2) I'd say as close as the pilots are apable off/dare. I know some people disagree with this.
2a) that depends on the ships. If they don't like each other or squable like siblings you might have trouble. if they try to outrace each other you will have trouble, if Trigon or some other AI not noted for people skills commes along you'll also have trouble. But if an AI thinks it's beldanndy I forsee smooth sailing. Unless mara is there.
so in short, simple in theory, not so in practice.
3) I'd say unknown, and for those that it is known it's not nessecaryly consistent. As for replacement parts, well they all started out as a hardtech device, so I'd say get the parts for that hardtech devie, which might be hard or simple, and some of the right handwavium.
E: "Did they... did they just endorse the combination of the JSDF and US Army by showing them as two lesbian lolicons moving in together and holding hands and talking about how 'intimate' they were?"
B: "Have you forgotten so soon? They're phasing out Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

[Sirrocco]

- Yes, towing an object is indistinguishable from having the object bolted on to you, for the purposes of moving it through space. Also, some drives are not designed to tow large masses - if you try to attach to much on the back, you're going to have problems.
- On being too close together - well, there's been argument on that. My personal answer would be that it's not inherently a problem, but the drive fields merge if you get close enough, meaning that you're talking about combined mass, and the combined top speed goes down accordingly. It doesn't go down *much*, but it goes down. If they're running perpendicular to one another on a quick flyby, you might throw each other off course a bit by similar means, but nothing too bad otherwise. However, I don't think we *have* a canonical answer here.
- Honestly, I always figured that handwavium stuff didn't really break - or if it did, that it responded well to percussive maintenance, impassioned pleas, or whatever. It doesn't ever stop working - it just gains character. When it gets too *much* character, you render it down for spares and scrap and replace the thing. Alternately, the hardtech portion might break somewhere, but then all you have to do is open it up, dig out the offendig bit, and replace it with somehting jsut like it, gotten through the normal hardtech channels.
Mind you, finding a handwavium mechanic, capable of looking at the symptoms and figuring out what was wrong so that you *could* fix it... well, if you didn't have the skills for yourself, that could take doing. Alternately, we could decide to take pity on poor Julian and figure that he always biomods with the salient skill set/intuition. Hmmm....

[robkelk]

Thanks, all - it looks like we're leaning towards what I was imagining. Now to go write the 'fic...

-Rob Kelk
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[classicdrogn]

On the issue of drive interaction in proximity - I know there was a suggestion to have drives drop ships down to amto speeds when they get within a certain range, and the objection that it would seriously mess with convoying - but what if one of the things that is a basic part of speed drives and always shows up in some form or another is a... well, I'm borrowing from VCRs rather than anything motive, but a "tracking control" so with a minor amount of fiddling you can synch up with the field of a freindly ship and not suffer the interference? THus figter craft still move at human-relfex speeds relative to each other, but convoys can get together and travel with little more difficulty than setting the cruise control on a highway.
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