Quote:The lack of atmosphere is a physical, unavoidable fact. Anything and everything planned to be done has to take it into account.
... you say that as if it makes a difference... as if it makes it easier... Without gravity and atosphere, not only do you have to come in at the right angle to come in contact with the landing area relatively gently, without missing the small and moving target that is the catch zone, you have to do it MOVING BACKWARDS so the engines are in position for braking thrust - and let's not even get into battle damage or the possibility of hostiles in the same sky. What's more, you have to do it with crews that have only had simulator time, not actual ZG flight experience at first, and the ones from the surface carriers probably don't even have that.
Standard carrier flight ops in no way do so. Trying to pretend that they're viable only means that, if you're lucky, the edge of grav field yanks you down, without warning, at ten m/s^2 in a total loss of control. This isn't a smart thing to do with any kind of craft, let alone one that's got battle damage or misfired ordinance.
Really, as I think about it more, I start to think that not only is the carrier pattern utterly wrong, but there is a better one - mid-air refueling. Exactly the same conditions apply to both sides of the equation, and closing velocities are low.
If they're high, you're dead - that's how space works. Granted, high doesn't mean quite the same thing to a Valkyrie or other overtech system that it would to a conventional one, but the principle stands.
The braking thrust question fails to consider either the transformation ability of a veritech or the fact that any combat spacecraft is going to have a fairly noteworthy Reaction Control System.
The danger of learning unfamiliar operations and skills is unavoidable - that's life in the big city. Following a false parallel is worse. It's suicide.
ETA:
Quote:What I'm thinking is that the hull and sail(s) are still, but have these roller/bearing things at their ends that the ring actually rests against and rotates past. So, the sails are the struts, and the ring moves past them. It's a suboptimal solution, but it's also by far the easiest refit and least massive of the options... well, besides just rotating your crew onto the Macross every few weeks.
RE Esperanza: Does the whole ship spin? The sail would stop the ring at one of the struts, and it seems like it would be easier to just have it mounted aft of the sub proper, with a slightly longer beam out to the engines and the original engine room at least partially into the access area to the ring elevator.
Ja, -n
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"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."