Some more Forstchenizm

Mad Hatter

Spaceman
I was wondering, although this has probably come up more than once, in End Run, and possibly other books by Forstchen, he mentions Capships achieving speeds of up to 10,000 KPS, which is a lot faster than what your fastest fighter can manage. That would mean that cap ships could outrun fighters quite easily, and it simply doesn`t make sense to me.
Anyone care to comment?
 
Im not sure but i believe he is referring to a ships cruising speed for travel, combat speed are much less since a ship cannot maneuver at those speeds.

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There is no God but myself. No destiny but what I deem for me. I walk my path and no others, for I am free.
 
Ships in the WC universe use energy fields, called scoops, to gather in stray hydrogen atoms to be used as fuel. These energy fields prevent a ship from achieving the drastically high fields that Forstchen spoke of, as they are constantly being impacted by hydrogen atoms. However, with the scoops "closed", meaning no hydrogen atoms are being collected, ships can achieve the speeds that he spoke of. In the WC games, we have no control over these fields, but the novels obviously show the fields to be controllable on both cap ships (Tarawa)and fighters (Hunter's Sabre in Fleet Action). It states this in End Run, all I'm doing is paraphrasing. For the more detailed explanation, I would read it again and look for the passages, I'm sorry I can't recall off hand where they are.
Hope this clears it up
Iceheart
 
I know about the scoops thing, but still, these speeds seem a bit on the extreem side. Even the speed of ships during battle e.g. 300 KPS is too high to be able to control the craft. Think of it: 2 ships are traveling toward each other at 300-400 kps. they aren`t visable to each other until they`re about 5 km away from each other, which means they have less than a hundredth of a second to react. Think how rediculous it is cruising at 6000 kps? Again, you`d be able to outrun any ship!
 
That's why a theory exists that when a ship gets near another object, weather it's a planet, asteroid, star or another ships, the speed is automatically reduced from kilometers to meters.

Anyhow, while a ship traveling with full scoops closed would be able to outrun some ships, all ships have scoops, so they can travel at similar if not faster speeds. And while you're scoops are closed you're burning fuel terribly fast without gathering any, and any maneuvering will burn even more.

Anyway, capships traveling at such speeds are definitely not Forstchenizm.

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"The road to Hell is paved with good intentions"
and the bodies of those adventurers who get bad advice.

Member of the LMG (Disgruntled Men)

[This message has been edited by Earthworm (edited September 19, 2000).]
 
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The Tarawa's maximum speed equivalent to those listed in Joan's is 247 kps (End Run, page 78).

The higher speeds mentioned towards the end of End Run are something all ships can do. If we point a capital ship in a straight line and continue to allow it to accelerate for half an hour, it will reach such speeds -- but it will be unable to maneuver and will require another half hour to slow down. You can't fight at 10,000 kps, but such speeds are *absolutely* necessary to get from one side of a star system to the other.
 
Otherwise, it'd take a helluva long time to travel between jump points, right?

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If I'm locked on, there's no such thing as evasive action!
 
I guess there has to be the option of travelling at such speeds, since it would take about a year and a half to get from one edge of a star system to the other edge at 250 kps.
Hmm... I think the theory of kilometers to meters would work better if they had use miles instead - mps.
 
Theory <G>? Check your WC2 distances
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(a quick physics lesson) In space, if you point your ship in one direction and keep accelerating in that direction, you will go faster, faster, and faster untill you reach light speed. This assumes that you are in a pure vacuum, so there's nothing to stop your acceleration. In reality, You won't have enough fuel to make it all the way to light speed. Also, There would be relativistic effects and some drag from hydrogen and other particles as you get near light speed.

In either case, there's no law of physics that says that WC capsips can't travel at these speeds. With the scoops closed, all WC ships are merely projectiles; and thusly, move the same way real life ships would move if they were built with matter/antimatter drives. The speeds mentioned in End Run are theoretically possible.

Icehart, we do have some control of the scoops in the games. It's called "autosliding", which turns the fighter's scoops on or off.

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Meson

Wing Commander is more than just a game. It is a lifestyle.
 
And me, I've always think that autoslide is possible because of *automatic* controlled small maneuvring trusters. By turning autoslide on You switch off main exaust from ion drive and fly, maintaiing course and speed (by inertia). And You can turn and spin in any direction by _playing_ on maneuver jets.

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Mikhail "Black Joker" Babloyan

Wing Commander in Russia

[This message has been edited by Black Joker (edited September 20, 2000).]
 
Yep, I don`t think it has anything to do with the scoops being closed. Then again, maybe it does have something to do with them, since scoops create drag and friction.
 
Scoops on a fighter would be totally useless. This is because the size of scoops would have to be massive to create any negligible drag. What the scoops do is pull in fuel (and M/AM engines have a virtually 100% energy conversion rate so thats E=mc2 which if you like large numbers light squared is 9 to the 10power) Thats an ungodly amount of energy so that very little mass is required). Fission energy is not even 1% efficent and look how much energy is released in a nuclear bomb. Autoslide uses manuevering jets to make minor corrections while inertia carries the fighter on its original course and actually should be available on all fighters. Also at the speed being talked about (10,000 kps or 1/30th the speed of light) will encounter virtually no relavitistic effects so mass won't be a problem nor will time differential be one.

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There is no God but myself. No destiny but what I deem for me. I walk my path and no others, for I am free.
 
Vondoom said:
What the scoops do is pull in fuel (and M/AM engines have a virtually 100% energy conversion rate so thats E=mc2 which if you like large numbers light squared is 9 to the 10power) Thats an ungodly amount of energy so that very little mass is required). Fission energy is not even 1% efficent and look how much energy is released in a nuclear bomb.

Not many WC fighters have M/AM drives. Wasn't the Dragon the only one? If that is the case, I'm guessing that the WCP fighters wouldn't, just by looking at the size differential. I would assume the Dragon was expensive and REALLY big becasue of the M/AM reactor, and I can't see one going into the new fighters.

As for the scoops being pretty useless, we had a lot of discussions about this back in the day. What you really have to consider is that this is a LONG way into the future. The technology to make a particle scoop that covers an extremely massive area, say maybe an entire system, could allow for manuevability not even seen with today's aircraft. That would seem to agree with the very low terminal velocities that capships and fighters have while their scoops are on.

Also, although saying so is probably treason, WC was never meant to be realistic from a scientific standpoint. It's always been WWII in space. So, while it doesn't hold up to scientific scrutiny, (I still have no idea why their base unit of energy is the nJ) it is a very compelling story in an equally compelling world.

[This message has been edited by Wolf Dog (edited September 20, 2000).]
 
Wolf Dog said:
Not many WC fighters have M/AM drives. Wasn't the Dragon the only one? If that is the case, I'm guessing that the WCP fighters wouldn't, just by looking at the size differential.
Dragon and Excal are the only ones, but the Excal version isn't as effective.

I would assume the Dragon was expensive and REALLY big becasue of the M/AM reactor, and I can't see one going into the new fighters.
Yes, it was very expensive, and it has 40 meters in length ('bout 120 feet).
 
I've been meaning to ask this for a while, but I keep forgetting - are those scoops on the fighters in WCP? I notice them on the Piranha, Panther, Devastator, and Vampire, but not on the Wasp, Shrike, or Tigershark. If some do and others don't, what's the difference in the flying?
 
Regarding the issue of scoop control in the novels versus lack thereof in the games... consider that it takes the Confederation four years to train a fighter pilot -- there are probably a lot of things that one can 'actually' do in a fighter that aren't included in the three minutes it takes to learn the computer game...
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Correct me if I'm wrong but at the end of the movie did the Snakeir use the scoop technology to catch up with Blair's Rapier?
And while I'm at it was the pilot that tractored Blair's Rapier Chris Roberts' cameo?
 
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