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Macavity
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Joined: 16 May 2021
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 Posted: Tue Jun 08, 2021 9:26 pm Post subject: World Building & Star Wars Spaceship Design |
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I've been working on an article and starship design system in this google doc here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BXL5UOSg4C5c_QEQ3xVcESljJL5QkzohiE6TdbTbPUc/edit?usp=sharing
I would love any discussion or commentary about it from the Rancorpit forum members!
This system is aiming to be comprehensive, is quite crunchy and based on the d6 Space system of stringing together modules with mass and power requirements without having to calculate specific amounts of area since I feel that this is something that's quite subjective and easily altered by overall form without impacting mass or energy requirements.
I have made a few very big assertions that supersede Star Wars cannon, such as S-Foils actually being a propulsive system that helps accelerate starfighters for lower energy at high speed by grabbing onto the margins of hyperspace from real space to account for why so many starfighters have it and to give an explanation of why they bank in space.
Similarly, TIE fighters vertical wings become combination S-Foils and passive heat radiators to reduce mass and do away with the silly explanation of their being solar panels for short-range craft, when those panels are placed in the least optimum position for collecting maximum sunlight.
The cannon description of the Solar Ionization Reactor actually sounds much more like a fusion reactor.
"Solar ionization reactors were a type of power-generating devices that functioned through using hypermatter to create a miniature star inside the reactor chamber to draw energy from."
What is a fusion reaction but a miniature star? |
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CRMcNeill
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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 Jun 08, 2021 10:58 pm Post subject: |
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I'm semi-active on some Star Wars forums that approach the setting from a hard sci-fi angle. Personally, I don't think this is fully compatible with the setting, but listening in on their discussions has provided me with some great technobabble ideas over the years. W/r/t to ship reactors, the general consensus is that even solar ionization / fusion reactors wouldn't be enough to explain what we see ships do, and they favor hypermatter annihilation reactors as the go-to for pretty much all space travel and combat.
My personal take is to have fusion / hypermatter be the dividing line between capital ships and starfighter-scale craft, with the hypermatter reactors being bulkier but having much greater endurance and power output per capita. The useful side effect is that it allows smaller vessels to maintain usage of things like solid fuel converters and air scoops mentioned in GG6, as such devices could be used to feed matter into a fusion reactor, but it's hard to justify them converting said matter into hypermatter for use in capital ships.
Here's a discussion we've had in the past about potential in-universe fluff for hypermatter.
Welcome to the Pit, BTW. You wouldn't happen to be Macavity de Carabas from the FB group, would you?
_________________
"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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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16320
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Tue Jun 08, 2021 11:09 pm Post subject: Re: World Building & Star Wars Spaceship Design |
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| Macavity wrote: | | I have made a few very big assertions that supersede Star Wars cannon, such as S-Foils actually being a propulsive system that helps accelerate starfighters for lower energy at high speed by grabbing onto the margins of hyperspace from real space to account for why so many starfighters have it and to give an explanation of why they bank in space. |
My theory combines the two, with the "grabbing" impeller needing to be augmented by ion or fusion thrust drives in order to achieve high speeds. Impeller-only craft do exist, but are achingly slow (the Death Star, Torpedo Spheres, etc), but do have an advantage in that there are no exposed thrusters to attack and damage.
The other idea I have for the impeller is having it affect the quantum state of all the molecules of the ship and passengers, not enough to provide instantaneous acceleration or direction changes, but enough to speed up / slow down and "bend" a ship away from a straight-line course.
A third concept involves making the acceleration compensator create a "dimple" in space-time that creates the appearance of drag. This would tie in with your idea of an impeller that grabs the edges of hyperspace.
| Quote: | | Similarly, TIE fighters vertical wings become combination S-Foils and passive heat radiators to reduce mass and do away with the silly explanation of their being solar panels for short-range craft, when those panels are placed in the least optimum position for collecting maximum sunlight. |
My take there was that, in addition to be field emitters for the impellers, they are also solar ionization collectors, using field generators to draw in gaseous particles found in space to feed into their ion drives. Basically miniature Busard Ram-Scoops, if you're a ST:TNG fan.
_________________
"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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Macavity
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Joined: 16 May 2021
Posts: 14
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| Posted: Wed Jun 09, 2021 1:37 pm Post subject: |
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| CRMcNeill wrote: | I'm semi-active on some Star Wars forums that approach the setting from a hard sci-fi angle. Personally, I don't think this is fully compatible with the setting, but listening in on their discussions has provided me with some great technobabble ideas over the years. W/r/t to ship reactors, the general consensus is that even solar ionization / fusion reactors wouldn't be enough to explain what we see ships do, and they favor hypermatter annihilation reactors as the go-to for pretty much all space travel and combat.
My personal take is to have fusion / hypermatter be the dividing line between capital ships and starfighter-scale craft, with the hypermatter reactors being bulkier but having much greater endurance and power output per capita. The useful side effect is that it allows smaller vessels to maintain usage of things like solid fuel converters and air scoops mentioned in GG6, as such devices could be used to feed matter into a fusion reactor, but it's hard to justify them converting said matter into hypermatter for use in capital ships.
Here's a discussion we've had in the past about potential in-universe fluff for hypermatter.
Welcome to the Pit, BTW. You wouldn't happen to be Macavity de Carabas from the FB group, would you? |
Hello, yes! I am Macavity de Carabas from the FB group.
I think that Star Wars has a fine line to tread regarding the physics of hard-sci-fi - which it isn't - and breaking believability by not having a visibly consistent internal logic.
That's been part of my specific problem with TIE fighter wings being solar panels: TIE fighters are short range, solar panels imply the ability to power independently for long durations; The original TIE fighter ILM models have the wings built out of a latticework grid - not solar panels at all; and the configuration of TIE wings is completely unsuited to collecting light.
What TIE wings and X-wing S-Foils DO look and act like are aerodynamic surfaces or electromagnetic plates that need to be at right angles to generate force in a specific direction.
I know that the TIE fighters were originally scripted to have Etheric Rudders.
If Etheric refers to Hyperspace, then this is a neat, in-universe explanation for why starfighters have wings and bank in space like aircraft or more importantly, like sailboats.
Their S-Foils dip just slightly into hyperspace - which is coterminus with real space - but instead of the massive amount of energy to accelerate the entire ship to faster than light speeds, they act like a rudder in a fast current, imparting some force to the ship through drag from the FTL particles in hyperspace.
Restricting this ability to etherically claw into the edges of hyperspace only to ships accelerating fast enough, explains why this is the purview of starfighters and why capitol ships don't have S-Foils.
Explaining Star Wars tech in terms of what you see that tech actually doing on screen is always going to be more internally consistent and satisfying than relying upon what some artist whipped up in the original material and was then repeated ad-nauseum by succeeding artists, and handwaving away the rest. It's not hard sci-fi at all. Its internally consistent world-building. |
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16320
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Sat Jun 12, 2021 9:14 pm Post subject: |
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| Macavity wrote: | | Hello, yes! I am Macavity de Carabas from the FB group. |
Welcome!
I like your idea, and actually did something similar to explain subspace radio (bouncing a signal off the dimensional boundary between real- and hyperspace). I would suggest that this be a factor in all ships, with the "external arrays" on starfighters being a result of limited internal volume.
_________________
"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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Macavity
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