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Theodrim
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 Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2015 10:22 am Post subject: |
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| cynanbloodbane wrote: | [Emphasis mine]
Actually, that is exactly how they work. Tractor beams use the inertia or mass of the larger object to effect the trajectory of a smaller, reguardless of which possess the tractor beam. Speeder is small object, chunk of planets crust dead ahead is big object. Speeder trajectory alters forward.  |
That's also the problem. Tractor beams' force fields have to be able to grasp matter of greater total mass than the vehicle in question to elicit change in motion in the latter; otherwise, it moves the former.
What if that isn't the case, like for example in the Dune Sea? You'd end up with a stationary landspeeder, now covered in a thick layer of sand for your trouble. Can't always count on a convenient rock, outcropping, or length of bedrock for this. |
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cynanbloodbane
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Joined: 05 Dec 2014
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| Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2015 11:36 am Post subject: |
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Oooh, a Tractor Beam come-along. Never get stuck again! Available at Tashi Station and all major retailors.
Sorry brain tangent.
I have to go back to tractor beams as stabilizers, not the only form of propulsion, at least in that case.
Use the turbine boosters to push.
Set the tractor beam to wide, you only need to exceed the mass of the speeder. Not as efficient as a solid surface, but it should still work even if it causes a small dust storm behind the speeder as it moves.
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
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Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2015 11:49 am Post subject: |
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| cynanbloodbane wrote: | | Set the tractor beam to wide, you only need to exceed the mass of the speeder. Not as efficient as a solid surface, but it should still work even if it causes a small dust storm behind the speeder as it moves. |
Already covered this on page 1:
| crmcneill wrote: | | Whill wrote: | | I can't see tractor beams providing thrust on water speeders because you would think that water would just be pulled back to the ship rather than the skimmer being pulled forward. Actually, I would think tractor beams wouldn't always work with landspeeders either because terrain changes on the ground could cause the tractors to grab onto something loose that is pulled back to the landspeeder instead of pulling the landspeeder forward. |
Actually, the possibility of that would be far less than what you get with modern wheeled vehicles. In a car, all of the forward thrust is generated through the points where the drive wheels touch the ground, usually little more than a square foot of total area. Part of the reason why a four-wheel drive pickup is better suited to difficult or loose terrain is because the distribution of thrust is doubled over that of a two-wheel drive vehicle (four drive wheels instead of two). Indeed, one of the main attractions for tank treads over wheels on armored vehicles is because of both distribution of weight and distribution of thrust (two strips of tread running most of the length of the vehicle, as opposed to four patches of wheel-to-ground contact).
In the case of my concept for landspeeders, rather than focusing the thrust onto a few points of contact under the vehicle, you are distributing evenly across the entire underside. So yes, you could still potentially scratch gravel or throw up some debris (recall the grass rippling under the MTTs in TPM), but that would actually be less likely than it would with a tank or car.
As far as water travel, it would also be feasible. Think of the tractor field like a high-tech paddle wheel (or even like the tread on a snow-mobile) taking up the entire underside of the vehicle, pushing against the surface of the water to create thrust. It would certainly displace water and create a wake behind the vehicle, but it could work. If the vehicle is intended primarily for land operations and ends up on the water, performance restriction would certainly be appropriate, and vice versa. You could even have amphibious repulsorlifts, equally at home either on water or on land. |
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Theodrim
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Joined: 18 May 2014
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| Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2015 12:08 pm Post subject: |
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| cynanbloodbane wrote: | | I have to go back to tractor beams as stabilizers, not the only form of propulsion, at least in that case. |
I think I'll stay in the "RCS suite for stabilization and propulsion" camp. It's a simpler, more elegant, cheaper, more accessible, readily usable in a wider array of environmental conditions, and extremely likely more power-efficient solution. Repulsors and particle shielding as they are, one would only need minimal reaction control through an array of miniature ion engines or internal gyroscopes to get the job done. Not to mention, something like that has the highest-possible degree of sci-fi pedigree being it's a real-world technology free from pseudoscience, technobabble, or other fantastic gobbledygook.
If that doesn't sell you, tractors aren't going to give you roll, pitch, and yaw control. Not to mention, vehicles such as AAT's with multiple repulsors would be perfectly capable of lateral movement by diverting power to different repulsors (changing pitch and roll) and hitting the RCS to effect movement (akin to how helicopters move laterally). |
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cynanbloodbane
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| Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2015 2:40 pm Post subject: |
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| Theodrim wrote: | | cynanbloodbane wrote: | | I have to go back to tractor beams as stabilizers, not the only form of propulsion, at least in that case. |
I think I'll stay in the "RCS suite for stabilization and propulsion" camp. It's a simpler, more elegant, cheaper, more accessible, readily usable in a wider array of environmental conditions, and extremely likely more power-efficient solution. Repulsors and particle shielding as they are, one would only need minimal reaction control through an array of miniature ion engines or internal gyroscopes to get the job done. Not to mention, something like that has the highest-possible degree of sci-fi pedigree being it's a real-world technology free from pseudoscience, technobabble, or other fantastic gobbledygook.
If that doesn't sell you, tractors aren't going to give you roll, pitch, and yaw control. Not to mention, vehicles such as AAT's with multiple repulsors would be perfectly capable of lateral movement by diverting power to different repulsors (changing pitch and roll) and hitting the RCS to effect movement (akin to how helicopters move laterally). |
Unfortunately none of that explains the ceiling, not based on the films or on any of the fluff text on repulsorlifts.
Land speeders ride level to the ground, a tractor array allows them to shift mass left to right or forward to back without tilting. A repulsorlift propulsion/stabilization would cause a tilt relative to the center of gravity to produce motivational force. Now there is an argument for roll and pitch with speeder bikes, but the forward or reverse motion produces no tilt.
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Theodrim
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| Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2015 6:39 pm Post subject: |
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| cynanbloodbane wrote: | | Unfortunately none of that explains the ceiling, not based on the films or on any of the fluff text on repulsorlifts. |
I want to say it's in one of the WEG books that talks about installing "jump jets" on landspeeders to (temporarily) overcome that flight ceiling. I know it's not Cracken's Rebel Field Guide, since that's the book that talks about aftermarket afterburners, overclocking landspeeders' turbines and overcoming speed governors.
| Quote: | | Land speeders ride level to the ground, a tractor array allows them to shift mass left to right or forward to back without tilting. A repulsorlift propulsion/stabilization would cause a tilt relative to the center of gravity to produce motivational force. Now there is an argument for roll and pitch with speeder bikes, but the forward or reverse motion produces no tilt. |
Which is odd, and a minor discrepancy given the official source information on landspeeders. Sticking turbine engines on the back, especially if they have stock or aftermarket afterburners or simply have speed governors removed and/or overclocked power plants (see, Cracken's Rebel Field Guide), would definitely imbalance a landspeeder kicking those things on. You'd still need roll, pitch and yaw control to compensate for changes in lateral velocity (and the greater the change, the more the need). |
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cynanbloodbane
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Joined: 05 Dec 2014
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Location: Cleveland, Go Tribe!
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| Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2015 7:35 pm Post subject: |
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| Theodrim wrote: | | cynanbloodbane wrote: | | Unfortunately none of that explains the ceiling, not based on the films or on any of the fluff text on repulsorlifts. |
I want to say it's in one of the WEG books that talks about installing "jump jets" on landspeeders to (temporarily) overcome that flight ceiling. I know it's not Cracken's Rebel Field Guide, since that's the book that talks about aftermarket afterburners, overclocking landspeeders' turbines and overcoming speed governors.
| Quote: | | Land speeders ride level to the ground, a tractor array allows them to shift mass left to right or forward to back without tilting. A repulsorlift propulsion/stabilization would cause a tilt relative to the center of gravity to produce motivational force. Now there is an argument for roll and pitch with speeder bikes, but the forward or reverse motion produces no tilt. |
Which is odd, and a minor discrepancy given the official source information on landspeeders. Sticking turbine engines on the back, especially if they have stock or aftermarket afterburners or simply have speed governors removed and/or overclocked power plants (see, Cracken's Rebel Field Guide), would definitely imbalance a landspeeder kicking those things on. You'd still need roll, pitch and yaw control to compensate for changes in lateral velocity (and the greater the change, the more the need). |
Agreed, that kind of implies that the stabilizer package for landspeeders is overbuilt for the vehicle or incredibly efficient, but only when close to ground level.
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"Yes because killing the guy you always planned on usurping and killing anyways in order to save your own kid, totally atones for murdering a roomful of innocent trusting children." The Brain |
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Theodrim
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| Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2015 8:12 pm Post subject: |
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| cynanbloodbane wrote: | | Agreed, that kind of implies that the stabilizer package for landspeeders is overbuilt for the vehicle or incredibly efficient, but only when close to ground level. |
Personally, I'd bet on the latter rather than the former. A combination of gyros and ion engine RCS, like I said, would likely get you there.
[Actually, now that I think of it, the entire reason this thread caught my eye is because I have something of my own planned in an upcoming story in my own game...the Return of the Saber-class Tanks. The party's going to end up stealing a prototype saber, one of the design advances over its Clone Wars forebear being the addition of jump jets, afterburners, and an advanced RCS that lets it pitch, roll, and yaw horrifyingly agilely.] |
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cynanbloodbane
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Location: Cleveland, Go Tribe!
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| Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2015 8:32 pm Post subject: |
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I still like the short range wide beam tractor stabilizers for explaining low flight ceiling and slower speed on heavy landspeeders like the episode I tanks. Makes more sense to me, but its your game, do what makes sense to you.
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Whill
Dark Lord of the Jedi (Owner/Admin)
Joined: 14 Apr 2008
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Location: Columbus, Ohio, USA, Earth, The Solar System, The Milky Way Galaxy
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| Posted: Sat Oct 24, 2015 9:57 pm Post subject: |
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| crmcneill wrote: | Already covered this on page 1:
| crmcneill wrote: | | Whill wrote: | | I can't see tractor beams providing thrust on water speeders because you would think that water would just be pulled back to the ship rather than the skimmer being pulled forward. Actually, I would think tractor beams wouldn't always work with landspeeders either because terrain changes on the ground could cause the tractors to grab onto something loose that is pulled back to the landspeeder instead of pulling the landspeeder forward. |
Actually, the possibility of that would be far less than what you get with modern wheeled vehicles. In a car, all of the forward thrust is generated through the points where the drive wheels touch the ground, usually little more than a square foot of total area. Part of the reason why a four-wheel drive pickup is better suited to difficult or loose terrain is because the distribution of thrust is doubled over that of a two-wheel drive vehicle (four drive wheels instead of two). Indeed, one of the main attractions for tank treads over wheels on armored vehicles is because of both distribution of weight and distribution of thrust (two strips of tread running most of the length of the vehicle, as opposed to four patches of wheel-to-ground contact).
In the case of my concept for landspeeders, rather than focusing the thrust onto a few points of contact under the vehicle, you are distributing evenly across the entire underside. So yes, you could still potentially scratch gravel or throw up some debris (recall the grass rippling under the MTTs in TPM), but that would actually be less likely than it would with a tank or car.
As far as water travel, it would also be feasible. Think of the tractor field like a high-tech paddle wheel (or even like the tread on a snow-mobile) taking up the entire underside of the vehicle, pushing against the surface of the water to create thrust. It would certainly displace water and create a wake behind the vehicle, but it could work. If the vehicle is intended primarily for land operations and ends up on the water, performance restriction would certainly be appropriate, and vice versa. You could even have amphibious repulsorlifts, equally at home either on water or on land. |
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I don't disagree with your description of the differences between small car tires, big trucks, and tanks. In all of those cases, some of the force of the vehicle's weight transferred through the tires/treads is holding the ground underneath it down while the tire/tread is passing over it. And yes some of that can be kicked up behind the vehicle, but that's not what I'm talking about. If a tractor field (even one that widely disburses the traction) goes out in front of the vehicle, there is nothing holding the terrain down like with a tire or tread. Any lightweight loose terrain, such as water, dirt, mud, sand, snow, loose vegetation, etc. is going to be pulled towards the vehicle by the tractor beam (while the vehicle is being pulled forward) because there is nothing holding it down (no tire/tread). But Luke's landspeeder travels smoothly through the desert and in Mos Eisley without any displaced particles visible in front of or under the vehicle. It's crystal clear in every version since the Special Editions. (In the original version of the film, there was the vaseline smudged "force field" directly under the vehicle to hide the wheels but still no displaced particles in front of the vehicle.)
Repulsor fields are anti-gravity that remove the point of contact with the terrain. While I agree that tractor fields in front of repulsorlift vehicles can achieve what tires/treads do for ground vehicles, tractors beams are artificial gravity which pulls things at both ends together. That is not what we see in the films.
What would make a little more sense to me than a tractor field in front of a speeder would be propulsion being supplied through another repulsor/anti-gravity field behind the speeder. Push instead of pull, and it would just be another application of the same technology already holding the vehicle up above the terrain. I agree that airspeeders would probably have another type of propulsion.
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CRMcNeill
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| Posted: Sun Oct 25, 2015 1:34 am Post subject: |
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Ah, I see. I wasn't proposing an actual tractor beam on the front of a landspeeder, but rather a tractor beam tech-based field underneath the landspeeder, that both latches onto the ground beneath the speeder's and pushes against it to produce movement.
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.
The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index
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Whill
Dark Lord of the Jedi (Owner/Admin)
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Location: Columbus, Ohio, USA, Earth, The Solar System, The Milky Way Galaxy
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| Posted: Sun Oct 25, 2015 9:46 pm Post subject: |
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| crmcneill wrote: | | Ah, I see. I wasn't proposing an actual tractor beam on the front of a landspeeder, but rather a tractor beam tech-based field underneath the landspeeder, that both latches onto the ground beneath the speeder's and pushes against it to produce movement. |
Ah, I see. So in other words, something like flintstone car/steamroller fields made of energy. That makes more sense, but a second repulsor-field pushing down and backwards is a simpler. I guess you could go all sci-fi and have true gravity manipulation inspired by Star Trek warp fields that make lower gravity behind the vehicle with higher gravity in front of the vehicle, so as the vehicle is moving forward it is 'artificially moving downhill'.
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
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Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Mon Oct 26, 2015 12:45 am Post subject: |
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| Whill wrote: | | That makes more sense, but a second repulsor-field pushing down and backwards is a simpler. |
That's what I was picturing, with the landspeeder's repulsorlift field varying field strength in concert with the drive-field to keep the speeder at a given altitude (i.e. added thrust to the drive field would cause the speeder to move forward and up, so the repulsorlifts reduce power to add weight and force the vehicle down against the upward force of the drive)
| Quote: | | I guess you could go all sci-fi and have true gravity manipulation inspired by Star Trek warp fields that make lower gravity behind the vehicle with higher gravity in front of the vehicle, so as the vehicle is moving forward it is 'artificially moving downhill'. |
I think the closest I've gotten to that is in my concept of airspeeders, with full-power repulsorlifts that can fully neutralize the craft's weight, and also redirect some of the gravity laterally to produce movement.
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.
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CRMcNeill
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| Posted: Mon Oct 26, 2015 4:44 pm Post subject: |
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I'm strongly considering splitting Repulsorlift Operation into Landspeeder Operation and Airspeeder Piloting...
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.
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Whill
Dark Lord of the Jedi (Owner/Admin)
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| Posted: Mon Oct 26, 2015 6:46 pm Post subject: |
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| crmcneill wrote: | | I'm strongly considering splitting Repulsorlift Operation into Landspeeder Operation and Airspeeder Piloting... |
Even though in the past year I've combined skills more in the sprit of 1e, I agree that this division between landspeeder and airspeeder makes a lot of sense. But then the Verpine asteroid hoppers are also repulsorlift tech so where do they go?
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