Quote:Thinking about it, I'd say, 'sort of' - that they can induce artificial gravity fields, but only relative to their own generator rings - ie, it has two directions: 'IN' and 'OUT'.
Kay, Fold drives can neutralize existing gravity fields. Can they also strengthen pre-existing gravity fields or create/control them?
Yes, this will make various aspects of the SDF-1's interior seem distinctly wierd to groundside eyes. All to the good.
Quote:I know. That's exactly what I'm after.
BTW, Anti-grav != inertial cancellers. Mass of an object is proportional to gravitric attraction of said object to another object. Antigrav is the blocking of said attraction. Inertial is the amount of force you have to impart on something to change it's velocity(Speed + direction)
Likewise, the 'maneuvering style' of the various fightercraft isn't supposed to be the 'WWII in space' effect so often seen in fiction. I don't want them to act like they were in Wing Commander. Heavy Gear 2, maybe...
Quote:The Dahak books are exactly the source I'm thinking of.
I assume that when talking about core taps, you mean something akin to Weber's Dahak series? Been a while since I last read the novel(second one IIRC) that describes the core tap.Since core taps are already handwavium, why not go a bit futher and say that the core tap designs we recovered already contains systems to convert radiation/hyperspace energy/whatever into usable forms, eg electricity
As to 'tuning the output', well, that'd be way too easy. ^_^ Also, this way, it's a lot easier to work out the secondary ripples of the technology.
Hm. I had intended the bit about 'directional output' to tie into why Zentradi starships have the articulated modules that the humans used to turn the SDF-1 into a giant flying gorilla, but if we assume that they're intended to serve as combination radiators/landing legs/flight decks... or something. The idea is that the MOBFG, in the Macross's original configuration, was nothing of the sort - it was the main engine, and after the crash it had had so much of its peripheral equipment trashed that the reverse-engineering team thought what was left looked more like a scaled up gun than a scaled-up reaction thruster.
As for engine types, while the core tap provides a great deal of power, it doesn't extend to high enough levels to push electric drive types (VASIMR, MPD, Hall Effect, etc.) past a thrust/weight ratio of 1... in short, they don't push hard enough to make for interesting action scenes.
My source is somewhat ambivalent about the actual performance of the two drive types that seem closest to what a (directional or otherwise) tap would give us, but the specific impulse looks like it could be comperable and the actual thrust would be a lot higher.
Ja, -n
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