Grav vehicles

[infojunky]

Over in the Starship's forum the nature of Grav vehicles has come up.

Question One, How do they work?

Question Two, How many flavors of grav vehicles are there?

 

[Dragoner]

A negative curvature, caused by negative mass. Note that in my setting I push them up the tech tree, so other vehicle types are still relevant. It is similar to how the jump drive works as well, tunneling through with negative mass metastable protium, "refined" from the LHyd.

 

[Spinward Flow]

Question One, How do they work?

"What goes up, can stay up ... given sufficient power supply."

Question Two, How many flavors of grav vehicles are there?

1. Submersible
2. Atmospheric
3. Transorbital
4. Orbital

I think that about covers it.

 

[Condottiere]

Specific to gravitational motors, I think it's field effect that neutralizes gravity.

Any additional lift can tilt it forward to fall in that direction, at that potential acceleration.

 

[mike wightman]

1. Cartoon physics
2. as many as you want there to be.

Longer answer.
null grav modules as used on air/rafts, gunships, speeders, and G-carriers.
They counteract local gravity and by means of introducing a gradient can cause an acceleration

How?

No idea.

Gravity as we understand it is the result of energy warping spacetime which bends the path of movement. It requires a lot of energy to produce "real gravity"

Artificial gravity, acceleration compensators and null grav modules do not have the energy to bend space time, so there has to be some other explanation.

Here are some words to arrange as you want to make up your handwavium - quantum, lattice, field, energy, distortion, gradient, relative, null, node,

 

[whulorigan]

Question One, How do they work?

I would suggest that Gravitics (broadly speaking) is actually some type of "pseudo-gravity" and not a manipulation of actual gravity, for the reasons that Mike Wightman notes above.

This could possibly be:

1. Some heretofore undiscovered force or spin-off effect of an existing force or forces (perhaps related to the underlying principles of a Unified Field Theory or hyper/jumpspace physics in some way) that acts upon mass; or
2. Some heretofore undiscovered force or spin-off effect of an existing force or forces (perhaps related to the underlying principles of a Unified Field Theory or hyper/jumpspace physics in some way) that acts upon or reacts to other fields or particles that virtually all matter internally possesses (such as the Strong Force / Gluon Fields, etc).
3. An entirely new force acting upon something as yet undetermined that most masses seem to possess (again, perhaps related to the underlying principles of a Unified Field Theory or hyper/jumpspace physics in some way).

As noted below, there are both "Lifters" which are not a significant thrust-agency (but may provide a limited amount of lateral motion in addition to "rise-and-hover"), and then there are various "Drives" which are actually action-reaction propulsion systems.

Question Two, How many flavors of grav vehicles are there?

I would also suggest that there is potentially a difference between the following (although they may simply be different applications of the same physics/engineering principles):

1. L-Drive (Lifter) (Contragrav/Null-grav) : Simply nullifies gravity, but does not otherwise produce thrust, or merely produces a minimal directional bias/motion along a gradient. Normally an additional thrust agency is required for any significant lateral motion or velocity. In T5, they are limited in use to 1.0 D from a massive body.
2. G-Drive : An actual Grav-Thruster which reacts against mass/gravity (action-reaction) to produce thrust (note that it might be effectively non-functional when null-grav/contragrav is in concurrent use - or they may tunably act together in unison (one scaling up as the other scales down). In T5, they are limited in use to 10.0 D from a massive body, beyond which they drop to 0.01 efficiency.
3. M-Drive : A more advanced type of G-Drive that (based on prior rulesets) may incorporate other operating principles as well (see MT / T-Drive Thruster below). Again, note that it might be effectively non-functional when null-grav/contragrav is in concurrent use - or they may tunably act together in unison (one scaling up as the other scales down). In T5, they are limited in use to 1000.0 D from a massive body, beyond which they drop to 0.01 efficiency (although many choose to modify or ignore this stipulation).
4. N-Drive (NAFAL) : A highly focused M-drive that gains significant operational radial performance range at the sacrifice of lateral performance. In T5, they are limited in use to ~1/8 lightyear from a massive body along a direct radial trajectory, beyond which they drop to 0.01 efficiency.

Also, some might choose to mention here the "Thruster" (T-Drive), which in T5 seems to be described like a Dean-drive (mechanical/non-gravitic), but in MT, TNE-FF&S, and T4 was another name for the M-Drive. The T4-Thruster had the 1000.0 D stipulation as in T5 above, but the MT-Thruster did not, and was described as a spin-off of both pseudo-gravity and the Strong Nuclear Force and was truly "Reactionless" with no maximum range specified (at least under normal usage conditions).

 

[infojunky]

1. Cartoon physics
2. as many as you want there to be.

See I don't have a problem with that....

Question One, How do they work?

Ok, I should have been a little clearer here.... I am not looking really for a scientific answer, more the general rules of how they operate.

I.e. my contention that in function they are like a helo, with similar constrained of motion... (Though Airship also would be a apt description as well)

Question Two, How many flavors of grav vehicles are there?

In my head an games there are at least two flavors... GravSleds which are kinda like Star wars Landspeeders limited to NOE operations i.e. within 10 meters of the ground. And Air/Rafts and the like which operate like Helos mostly.

The difference is GravSleds are cheaper and less energy intensive.... (Though in T5 lifters suffice in this role)

From a visual POV all the things that look like ground vehicles are generally GravSleds...

 

[Grav_Moped]

Grav vehicles, grav drives (my thread on this from August 2018)

The link in the first post to the thread I'd forked it from was broken in the forum platform transition. It's here: Entry, descent, and landing.