Quote from: Reckall on February 10, 2022, 04:48:26 PM
What about taking a leaf from GURPS Terradyne? I bought it at the end of my GURPS cycle so I never played it it, but IIRC it had a strong "let's colonise the Solar System - realistically!" vibe.

I have it and to be honest it is pretty boring compared to the Expanse.

Quote from: estar on February 10, 2022, 09:21:23 PM

Quote from: jeff37923 on February 10, 2022, 04:08:40 PM

Quote from: estar on February 10, 2022, 03:19:44 PM

Quote from: jeff37923 on February 10, 2022, 02:35:13 PM
What about the Jovian Trojans? The delta vee to get from there to Ceres can't be greater than going from Saturn to Ceres.
(I know, I'm quibbling.)

Well it does take as much delta-vee to reach Deimos or Phobos as it does to land on the moon. So it all depends on how the energy plot looks.

According to HF map and my rules it would take 9 burns and 9 days at 1 G to reach Low Callisto Orbit.
To reach Ceres or more accurately the Gefion family of asteroids it would take 8 burns.
To reach the Trojan Jupiter group it would take 10 burns.
To reach the Greek Jupiter group it would take 9 burns.

There is an alternative path to the Greek to the L3 Mars-Sol point that only takes 8 burns.

Is there a larger HF map that I can access online? I can't really read the numbers for the image on Imgur and I'm left with mathing it out which will take me a bit of time I don't have right now.

This is the highest resolution you can download. However you will need an account (free) in order to get access to it.
https://boardgamegeek.com/image/5605558/high-frontier-4-all

Thank you.

Rough number crunching of Hohmann transfers gives me an 8.2 km/sec for Jupiter Trojans to Ceres while it gives me 13.1 km/sec for Saturn to Ceres but that is not including the plane changes. Now, something I didn't think of are the Hilda asteroids, which only need a 5.2 km/sec for delta vee.  Most of the Hildas are C-type and should have plenty of water.

Come to think of it, why isn't the water recycling taking up a lot of slack for the belter population? I know, because plot.

EDIT: It should be known that you don't have to get into this kind of nitty-gritty math/science/engineering to play Traveller. I do it because I dig it and it allows me to run games in that system with more depth, but I don't impose this on players (they'd hate it for the most part).

Quote from: estar on February 10, 2022, 11:44:08 AM
I am going to redraw the maps to remove the unneeded clutter and see how that works.

Please keep us updated.  I'd be really interested in what you do with it!

Quote from: estar on February 10, 2022, 02:15:06 PM
The Expanse comes across to me as an old and developed civilization. Both in the novel and the show. They have dozens of ships like the Canterbury working the ice rings of Saturn to supply water for millions.

Yeah, space travel is centuries old in the setting, even the Epstein drive has been around about a century. Mars traded it with Earth for their independence. Ships like the Cant were former colony ships for the most part, converted to alternative uses rather than break them up.

Lots of old ships were retrofitted with Epstein drives, which extended their useful life by decades or more. Most of the warships are 30-40 years old, some of the UNN ones even as old as a century.

Quote from: estar on February 10, 2022, 02:15:06 PMAs for the speed of the Epstein drive. The situation at the start of Leviathan Wakes is that it takes days to travel between major settlement. You can think of the Expanse Solar System as the Pacific Ocean with the different settled planets, moons, stations, and asteroids islands dotting the ocean. Sure it wasn't hard for the Polynesians to travel but it wasn't easy either. Leading to different sections of the Pacific to develop in its own way. And beyond Saturn it still takes weeks to get anywhere.

This is something the books make much clearer than the show, travel times are measured in weeks and months around the solar system. Even comms has delays of minutes or hours.

That's another reason why there are no interceptor/fighter-sized craft, they wouldn't be comfortable to travel any of the distances that events take place in.

Quote from: Kiero on February 12, 2022, 05:32:41 PM
That's another reason why there are no interceptor/fighter-sized craft, they wouldn't be comfortable to travel any of the distances that events take place in.

Seems like there was a use case for having some short range ones with nukes or some sort of rock busting capabilities.   

Quote from: KingCheops on February 12, 2022, 07:06:10 PM

Quote from: Kiero on February 12, 2022, 05:32:41 PM
That's another reason why there are no interceptor/fighter-sized craft, they wouldn't be comfortable to travel any of the distances that events take place in.

Seems like there was a use case for having some short range ones with nukes or some sort of rock busting capabilities.   

The Razorback proved they could have made fighters. It wouldn't have been to.hard to see them putting a few missiles and PDCs on a similar hull.

Quote from: HappyDaze on February 12, 2022, 07:26:27 PM

Quote from: KingCheops on February 12, 2022, 07:06:10 PM

Quote from: Kiero on February 12, 2022, 05:32:41 PM
That's another reason why there are no interceptor/fighter-sized craft, they wouldn't be comfortable to travel any of the distances that events take place in.

Seems like there was a use case for having some short range ones with nukes or some sort of rock busting capabilities.   

The Razorback proved they could have made fighters. It wouldn't have been to.hard to see them putting a few missiles and PDCs on a similar hull.

Fighters work in real life because they are faster, smaller, longer range, and cheaper and pack the firepower to kill a naval ship by itself. 

That not the case with spacecraft. Anything with people will have the same range and speed regardless of size. Any drone regardless of size will have the same range and speed.  Unless the smaller engine has a vastly different Thrust to weight ratio the rocket equation mean the different that exist on a planetary surface doesn't exist in space.

There is a size limit and that is because of heat. Build something too large then you won't have the surface area to dump the heat that generated. The same problem exist with living things.

Quote from: estar on February 12, 2022, 10:53:27 PM

Quote from: HappyDaze on February 12, 2022, 07:26:27 PM

Quote from: KingCheops on February 12, 2022, 07:06:10 PM

Quote from: Kiero on February 12, 2022, 05:32:41 PM
That's another reason why there are no interceptor/fighter-sized craft, they wouldn't be comfortable to travel any of the distances that events take place in.

Seems like there was a use case for having some short range ones with nukes or some sort of rock busting capabilities.   

The Razorback proved they could have made fighters. It wouldn't have been to.hard to see them putting a few missiles and PDCs on a similar hull.

Fighters work in real life because they are faster, smaller, longer range, and cheaper and pack the firepower to kill a naval ship by itself. 

That not the case with spacecraft. Anything with people will have the same range and speed regardless of size. Any drone regardless of size will have the same range and speed.  Unless the smaller engine has a vastly different Thrust to weight ratio the rocket equation mean the different that exist on a planetary surface doesn't exist in space.

There is a size limit and that is because of heat. Build something too large then you won't have the surface area to dump the heat that generated. The same problem exist with living things.

The Razorback exists in the setting. It is a racing ship with a very high acceleration, but it appears to be quite capable of long duration trips too. It has no weapons, but it could have formed the basis of a light armed ship skin to a fighter with a little ingenuity. Dumping heat isn't something that the Expanse focused upon.

Relevant:

http://toughsf.blogspot.com/2019/10/the-expanses-epstein-drive.html

Quote from: HappyDaze on February 13, 2022, 12:21:15 AM

The Razorback exists in the setting. It is a racing ship with a very high acceleration, but it appears to be quite capable of long duration trips too. It has no weapons, but it could have formed the basis of a light armed ship skin to a fighter with a little ingenuity. Dumping heat isn't something that the Expanse focused upon.

Again there is no advantage to arming the Razorback. Or the ship that tried to shoot the Ring. That class of ship was built to have as high thrust to weight as possible. It trivial to build a drone that can exceed what the Razorback can do. In fact from Chapter 31 of Nemesis Games when Alex was talking about what was needed to use the Razorback to escape a Free Navy ambush.

Quote
"Not going to be enough. If we're burnin' all the way to Earth... we can probably outrun the enemy ships, but their missiles don't have to worry about keeping anyone inside from getting squished by thrust. And it ain't like there's anything out here to hide behind."

Quote from: estar on February 13, 2022, 08:47:41 AMAgain there is no advantage to arming the Razorback. Or the ship that tried to shoot the Ring. That class of ship was built to have as high thrust to weight as possible. It trivial to build a drone that can exceed what the Razorback can do.

Unfortunately, the "just use a drone" argument can be used to explain why none of the ships we see make logical sense. Gunships, destroyers, battleships would all be inferior to a missile armed drone. This is especially true because of the vast amount of destructive energy that can be imparted into a simple mass via the Epstein drive. Even those cargo transports would be more effective if they were crewless drone ships.

At some point you just have to draw the line and accept the rule of cool.

Quote from: estar on February 13, 2022, 08:47:41 AM

Quote from: HappyDaze on February 13, 2022, 12:21:15 AM

The Razorback exists in the setting. It is a racing ship with a very high acceleration, but it appears to be quite capable of long duration trips too. It has no weapons, but it could have formed the basis of a light armed ship skin to a fighter with a little ingenuity. Dumping heat isn't something that the Expanse focused upon.

Again there is no advantage to arming the Razorback. Or the ship that tried to shoot the Ring. That class of ship was built to have as high thrust to weight as possible. It trivial to build a drone that can exceed what the Razorback can do. In fact from Chapter 31 of Nemesis Games when Alex was talking about what was needed to use the Razorback to escape a Free Navy ambush.

Quote
"Not going to be enough. If we're burnin' all the way to Earth... we can probably outrun the enemy ships, but their missiles don't have to worry about keeping anyone inside from getting squished by thrust. And it ain't like there's anything out here to hide behind."

Real world fighter aircraft can't outrun missiles either, but they are still widely used today.

Quote from: hedgehobbit on February 13, 2022, 11:38:07 AM

Quote from: estar on February 13, 2022, 08:47:41 AMAgain there is no advantage to arming the Razorback. Or the ship that tried to shoot the Ring. That class of ship was built to have as high thrust to weight as possible. It trivial to build a drone that can exceed what the Razorback can do.

Unfortunately, the "just use a drone" argument can be used to explain why none of the ships we see make logical sense. Gunships, destroyers, battleships would all be inferior to a missile armed drone. This is especially true because of the vast amount of destructive energy that can be imparted into a simple mass via the Epstein drive. Even those cargo transports would be more effective if they were crewless drone ships.

At some point you just have to draw the line and accept the rule of cool.

Unless they are completely autonomous, a drone ship will still need a controller. Then you have communications lag, so any distance greater than 300000 km (or even 150000 km for transmit and return) is going to really complicate your control of that drone.

Quote from: jeff37923 on February 13, 2022, 03:16:08 PM

Quote from: hedgehobbit on February 13, 2022, 11:38:07 AM

Quote from: estar on February 13, 2022, 08:47:41 AMAgain there is no advantage to arming the Razorback. Or the ship that tried to shoot the Ring. That class of ship was built to have as high thrust to weight as possible. It trivial to build a drone that can exceed what the Razorback can do.

Unfortunately, the "just use a drone" argument can be used to explain why none of the ships we see make logical sense. Gunships, destroyers, battleships would all be inferior to a missile armed drone. This is especially true because of the vast amount of destructive energy that can be imparted into a simple mass via the Epstein drive. Even those cargo transports would be more effective if they were crewless drone ships.

At some point you just have to draw the line and accept the rule of cool.

Unless they are completely autonomous, a drone ship will still need a controller. Then you have communications lag, so any distance greater than 300000 km (or even 150000 km for transmit and return) is going to really complicate your control of that drone.

You don't need active remote control. Simply dictating targeting priorities and mission objectives can be enough if the drone has low level AI just like controlling units in RTS games by setting a stance (aggressive, defensive, avoidance) and a destination. A few seconds of lag shouldn't matter much as, lacking much stealth in space (the show does highlight some exceptions), you'll have a lot of warning (hours or even days) of anything approaching.

Missiles/torpedoes themselves already fulfil the "armed drone" role, in the setting. They can loiter, reassess and change targets, cover huge distances (because they have Epstein drives of their own).

Countermeasures are mostly inferior to the AI driving them, which is why ships use either counter-missile fire or PDCs as a defense against them. Unless a fighter is mounting a PDC of it's own, it's extremely vulnerable to missiles.