Yet Another Brain Fart -- err, plot bunny

[Valles]

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I'm getting something of a Battletech vibe here. Long spindly jumpships with pods attached? Or long and spindly jumpships with smaller dropships detaching for jump-point to planet travel? Large spherical or egg-shaped transport dropships (to maximise internal volume) and smaller, blockier combat vessels.

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Somewhat, yes, or the Dune-verse's Heighliners. Jumpships don't usually just sit at the jump points, though - for one thing, they're even more vulnerable that way - so they usually do the ferrying back and forth from planetary orbit themselves rather than carry along seperate 'lighter' hulls for the purpose.
Oh, and about engines. The Paladins, being as they have forcefields to play around with, tend to go with something that looks about like your standard magnetic confinement fusion engine, while most other factions rely on one flavor or other of nuclear thermal rocket, modulo how well they can deal with radiation poisoning. Terran surface-to-orbit shuttles rely on simple LOH/LOX rockets, and everything else, from the Jumpships on down to the specialist warships they call 'Monitors', well, they do the bang-bang boogie. Aka, Orion.
Yes, everyone else thinks they're crazy.
Ja, -n

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"Puripuri puripuri... Bang!"