Once More, With Feeling

[Error]

Just wondering why you give a damn what Novus does to their spaceships, is all. That said, I guess the Hexalani questioning my warship designs is fairly par for the course.

And I doubt adding landig gear and a new setting to the artificial gravity generators makes us engineering gods, but thanks.

[Vinyl]

What makes you engineering gods is you managed to make 4 1.7km carriers that can not only engage in combat, but only require strikecraft to support them.

[Shadowcatbot]

if artificial gravity exists (it does), antigravs do, too. Calculate the gravity of whatever you're landing on and use the a-grav to mimic that pull, in the opposite direction. Blam, instant antigravs.

WHAT PHYSICS DONT EVEN WORK THAT WAY ARGHGHGRHGRHGHHGGHGHG WTF




My exact thought process when I read this.

[Ivan2006]

yeah, last time I checked artificial gravity had the power to keep objects inside the ships sticking to the floor, not to move the entire ship. If you can use it for landing, you could do the same thing in space, effectively making a vacuum thruster. I thought we were still using fuel? Wouldn't a vacuum thruster strong enough to lift a ship that still fits inside it be somewhat OP considering comperable technology and, oh, the complete lack of dedicated research effort?

[Error]

Yes, physics does (could, if we ever do a-grav) work that way. It's like intertia dampening - acceleration pulls you towards the rear of the ship. A-grav generates force that cancels it out, thus, no real effect.

And @Ivan you could use it for thrust, sure. But generating a gravity field to move your ship has a nasy habit of moving stuff around it. If you downsize the field to counter that, you still need a generator that can pull more than 1g to get any decent acceleration.

The only upshot to fusion drives is they're very efficient and can also be used to generate power. Gravity drives don't generate power. And it doesn't lift a ship, in this case; it provides enough pull to almost nullify the vessel's weight, and thrusters do the rest.

If you want gravity drives, go build gravity drives. Not my fault if you/we never thought to ask if they could be done.

[Shadowcatbot]

That... made no sense whatsoever. I thought our artificial gravity worked off of magnetic fields and operated by pulling on the frame of the ship itself. Inertia dampeners are the same thing, just mounted sideways and backwards on the ship.
It would be impossible for an artificial gravity generator to pull the ship itself unless that generator was mounted to another object and was exerting its force into that or it was pushing another object away and thus again, enacting newtons laws.

[Error]

I think both arugments there went whoosh.

My point was that unless we can build and use them, we actually don't know if gravity drives would work (and artificial grqvity has nothing to do with magnetic fields, here - that's the one bit of handwavium everyone was generally cool with). I'm not sure where the magic counter-force comes from; you generate gravity that pull the ship forward, it will fall forward into that gravity.

If it makes you happy, we'll say square law (or something similar) applies; to generate internal gravity costs X watts/minute. To move a ship with it costs X^4 (or 5?) watts/minute. Work for you?

[Vinyl]

Hexalan has introduced all-new Crispers flavors, ranging from Salty Vuowti to Deep Fried. Buy a carton today!

[Error]

Salty what?

[Vinyl]

Sausage.

Spoiler:

[Error]

Oh. Forgot about those.
- - -

UPDATE FOR EVERYBODY - Current date in-universe is March 1, 2195.

- - -

After some complaining by Scorpia Fleet Yards and the mining sites on Elysium, the production of Valkyrie-class ships has been shelved. To fill the gaps in fleet composition, the new Loki-class frigate design is being rushed through the final stages of refinement and editing. The first ships are expected to be laid down by the end of 2195.

[Shadowcatbot]

I'm not sure where the magic counter-force comes from; you generate gravity that pull the ship forward, it will fall forward into that gravity.

Its the laws of motion...
If you have a generator mounted on a ship and that generator produces a magical field of force to move things. Say it pushes a 100Kg object forward. Due to that object being moved forward that 100kg of force is pushing the generator back in an equal and opposite reaction.
As a result this generator cannot push itself because it would be equally pushing against itself and as a result either: a. Do nothing, or b. Rip itself from the ship and smash into things.

Spoiler:

In order for such an event to happen without the above results you would have to break physics.
As for generating a field infront of the ship to pull it forward, the same thing still happens just with different arrow directions.

[Error]

Unfortunately, by that argument, artificial gravity is entirely impossible; pulling down on the crew (and such) would pull up on the generator, and cause no end of engineering gripes (and consequently, it wouldn't be used for fear of being lynched by said engineers).

While, yes, you could use them, the stress it puts on the hull and frame (1g of gravity through the entire ship is a lot of g's upwards on the generator), drastically shortening the generator's lifespan (or the ship's). To be honest, a slight handwave and game-balance pass is fine by me.

The alternative is handwavium-powered a-grav, and handwavium-powered antigravs. Remember, anything the Novans can do is replicable by anybody who puts a bit of effort or time in.

If this continues to cause gripes, we could just delegate all the physics-related problems to cats or Fen from now on.

[Professor Fenway]

I AM GM I WILL OF SOLVE


Ok, ship gravity and anti-gravity are different, and anti-gravity is not powerful enough to land a dreadnought. Let me explain;

Ship gravity is not accomplished by simply a generator, oh no. It is accomplished through emitting Higgs Boson particles generated in a series of generators through floor plating, which pull objects to the floor. The objects pull the ship almost equally, thereby cancelling out any acceleration. That fixes the third law problems.

Now, for anti gravity fields (hereby referred to as Inertial Fields), what they do is lower the 'effective' mass of a spacecraft. What this means is, it lowers the inertia that generally makes ships hard to move, especially large ones. In space, it can also help redirect velocity vectors, with some thrust-vectoring support by the engines.

Now, the Inertial Fields are especially useful in that they allow a ship to hover above a spot on a planet, in space, while not being in geosynchronous orbit (or in orbit at all, really). This is extremely useful for certain operations, but they are very taxing on generators (for reference, Vishnu uses a very, VERY large one, otherwise it wouldn't even be possible.) This Inertial Field also allows for smaller ships to near a planet and land on it.

The problem with larger ships and inertial fields is that the Inertial Field doesn't counteract gravity at all directly (remember, all objects accelerate at the same rate), it just makes it easier to counteract it with thrusters. Meaning that, unless you pack some REALLY POWERFUL downward facing thrusters on your dreadnought when you land, you're not going anywhere. They effectively have to be able to lift the entire ship against gravity. And the velocity/thrust redirection doesn't work when landed, because you have no velocity to redirect when stationary compared to the planet and the thrust vectoring is limited.

Want a dedicated dreadnought landing ship? Go ahead. Just pack some monstrous thrusters on it that allow it to land.

[Error]

In that case, it could land; just only on the tail. Dreadnoughts by default, require powerful thrusters to, y'know, move (and being a cripple when your IF goes out is a Bad Thing), so revision to previous - battlecarriers can land, but only in prepared groundside docks, and with functioning Inertial Fields.

When it comes to the destroyers, though, bets are off.