update to my website

glitterboy2098 · Tue Aug 02, 2011 1:14 am

i've added a few things to my phase world annex.

first, i've added some detail on enders cluster, including finalized material for the Tannhouser gates. i find it interesting that when i wrote the intro to enders cluster, the bit about an engineered stellar enviroment seemed new and original. recently i picked up the thundercloud galaxy promo PDF..and found that Braden had already started exploring the idea of an engineered eviroment.. i guess great minds think alike..

and perhaps of more interest to this forum, i've added an outline for my phase world technical manual. progress on this is slow, as i assimilate information to update my old notes, and try to work out how detailed i want to get. but the outline defines the topics i want to cover. including some of the 'hypothetical' stuff, ideas that should be viable in the setting but thus far haven't showed up.

development of new material continues, albeit at a fairly glacial pace. enders clusters especially has generated alot of notes and ideas in need of finalizing.

taalismn · Unread post by **taalismn** » Tue Aug 02, 2011 1:35 pm

"SPOCK! We need cable service back on NOW!!!"

glitterboy2098 · Tue Aug 02, 2011 7:34 pm

i'm glad i found that image.

next up for Enders cluster is probably the race that lives in giant sublight generation ships. though i'm still working out the details of their city-ship drives. ships that big are hard to move using conventional drives, and i refuse to resort to a 'handwave reactionless drive' like a CG drive. i'm currently looking at mini-magnetospheric plasma propulsion..AKA plasma sail. passive drive, but given the scale, should work..maybe. i'm running the idea past some people better versed in this stuff than me.

after that, it'll probably a the pirate society offshoot of said group. that one will be interesting in how their technology has branched off from the main groups, part of the philosophical divide that caused them to split off in the first place.

Aramanthus · Unread post by **Aramanthus** » Wed Aug 03, 2011 12:05 am

It looks very cool. I need to have more time to look at your site. I'm going to spend more time here later this week. Thank you for telling us about your update GB.

taalismn · Unread post by **taalismn** » Wed Aug 03, 2011 1:22 pm

WildWalker wrote:Chor'ii terrify me...

WildWalker

They're SUPPOSED to, unless you're utterly inedible and/or can pump out millions of megaton-yield anti-ship missiles and can reinforce your home system with giant anti-ship lasers, plus can anything that lives and breaths and moves on your planet to take up a weapon and be ready to defend your homeworld. :demon:

gaby · Unread post by **gaby** » Wed Aug 03, 2011 6:19 pm

Great

Hope to see more Alien races.

glitterboy2098 · Wed Aug 03, 2011 7:40 pm

WildWalker wrote:Chor'ii terrify me...

WildWalker

they're supposed to.

which is funny, because an individual chor'ii is small, weak, and slow. their infantry weaponry sucks, their ships are pathetically obsolete even for that backwater part of the universe, and their tactics are lousy.

they've just figured out the concept of 'economy of scale' better than most groups in the phase world setting...

Great

Hope to see more Alien races.

working on some, but i beleive that "aliens should be alien"..so getting thme worked out is tougher. i'm not a big fan of glueing some foam rubber foreheads onto a human and saying "close enough"

of course, i intend to make the humans of the setting alien as well...

taalismn · Unread post by **taalismn** » Thu Aug 04, 2011 2:43 pm

gaby wrote:Great

Hope to see more Alien races.

I'll be sure to warn any new alien races I come across that you're looking for them.

Aramanthus · Unread post by **Aramanthus** » Sun Aug 07, 2011 1:35 am

Should you issue any BBQ sauce to these new races. That way if they meet the Chor'ii: They are equiped with the appropriate equipment to help them become better one time friends.

glitterboy2098 · Tue Aug 09, 2011 11:54 pm

quick update on WIP material:
plasma sail for the generation ships turned out to be a bad idea. but a drive i had rejected turned out to be a good one. even if it is slow as hell...

with questions of drive answered, the rest of the write up can commence..and as a result of this drive, the formerly unarmed ships now boast really, really, really scary defenses..

taalismn · Unread post by **taalismn** » Wed Aug 10, 2011 1:48 pm

glitterboy2098 wrote:quick update on WIP material:
plasma sail for the generation ships turned out to be a bad idea. but a drive i had rejected turned out to be a good one. even if it is slow as hell...

with questions of drive answered, the rest of the write up can commence..and as a result of this drive, the formerly unarmed ships now boast really, really, really scary defenses..

Kzinti Lesson?

glitterboy2098 · Wed Aug 10, 2011 9:42 pm

taalismn wrote:
glitterboy2098 wrote:quick update on WIP material:
plasma sail for the generation ships turned out to be a bad idea. but a drive i had rejected turned out to be a good one. even if it is slow as hell...

with questions of drive answered, the rest of the write up can commence..and as a result of this drive, the formerly unarmed ships now boast really, really, really scary defenses..

Kzinti Lesson?

naw, i got that covered already in my rules

Section 5.) Drives as Weapons: (AKA "The Kzinti Lesson")
at these speeds, even a bolt or nail can be a weapon of mass destruction. ships even more so. as a general rule, an object moving at 3kilometers a second does damage equal to it's mass in TNT.
what this means is that for every 10 mach of velocity, an object does 1D6x10md per ton of mass. this damage is applied to both objects in the collision.
powerful reaction drives, such as fusion, antimatter photon drives, and torch drives, are highly destructive. they generate plumes of high temprature gases which provide the propulsive force, and these plumes can cut through ships like a knife through butter. for these drives, the drive plume extends 1 kilometer per mach of accelleration, and inflicts 1D6x10md per mach of accell for every 1000 ton of mass to anything that enters the plume. lower technology races often used fusion drive or photon drive ships as weapons to defeat more advanced enemies in Space Fiction Novels, by making use of this fact.
this sort of combat was popularized by Larry Niven in his "Known Space" and "Man-Kzin Wars" settings. The Kzinti, a race of imperialistic felinoids that had gravity drives, heat rays, and powerful warships, encountered mankind, which had developed into a pacifistic, fairly ignorant race with little concept of weapons or war. needless to say, we proceeded to kick the Kzinti's rear ends all over space, because while we had forgotten war, we had the smarts to turn the 'common' fusion drive spacecraft into really big cutting torches, communitions lasers into ultra-long range laser cannons, and generally out thought the kzinti in every war, always inventing new ways to fight. thus the origins of "the kzinti lesson", which is "the effectiveness of a reaction drive as a weapon is directly porportional to its effectiveness as a drive." or in short, the more powerful the drive, the potent it is as a weapon.

no, it's some of the things you can use a drive like this as a catalyst for are really nasty..

edit: btw, i've added a bit to my entry page listing those individuals who have been of great help to me in developing my stuff. if i've left a name out, let me know!
also, if any of you guys that are listed have a homepage you want me to link to in that section, just drop me a link!

Aramanthus · Unread post by **Aramanthus** » Thu Aug 11, 2011 11:58 am

Wow. I am honored GB. Thank you. :oops:

taalismn · Unread post by **taalismn** » Thu Aug 11, 2011 3:14 pm

Agreed. Glad am I to be of service.

glitterboy2098 · Thu Aug 11, 2011 10:56 pm

new material!

The Star wanderers, the most powerful human faction in the cluster..

and their Urbs class sublight generation ships.

btw, i majorly under-gunned the Urbs class...something that big with that drive could carry alot more of those weapons (and honestly, they should reach alot farther out...)

the drive by the way, is a real concept, and i picked the brains of a semi-expert to ensure the numbers were right too. :twisted:

Aramanthus · Unread post by **Aramanthus** » Fri Aug 12, 2011 12:23 am

That is a cool concept. I know I've seen the concept of those sort of humans in various other scifi stuff before. I'll have to read about the drive.

glitterboy2098 · Fri Aug 12, 2011 6:07 pm

a few notes based on the response of Lord Z over at nexusnine.

Ender's Cluster has basically two restraints in regards to technology. no reactionless drives ,and no antimatter powerplants/weapons.
those have become extremely common in phase world, so by choosing to not use those in my setting, i get to explore alternative approaches. like orion drive, or the many variations of fusion drives, Zero-point feilds, etc..
i may eventually use tiny amounts of antimatter obtained from natural sources for antimatter catalyzed fusion drives, but at the moment i have no such group in the works.

the charges for the urbs class ship's orion drive* thus had to be nuclear. in particular, pure fusion using a dueterium-dueterium reaction. the fuel for this is extrmely common in the universe, and can be obtained by processing water (such as that which can be gotten from comets), or even directly from hydrogen ices found in comets in the Oort cloud.

the ships powerplant uses a solar fusion approach combining D+D, D+T (the tritium being produced as a side effect of the D+D cycle), and D+H3 (again, using D+D byproducts) to get the most energy out of the fuel.

i was tempted to add bomb-pumped gamma ray rasers as well as the bomb pumped X-ray lasers...but couldn;t find any hard info on the studies into those beyond those at atomic rockets.
and the 'casaba-howitzer' is a real weapon concept the airforce spun off from Orion drive research. a nuclear shaped charge with a different plate at the top so that instead of high mass low velocity plasma, it generates a stream of low mass, high velocity plasma useful as a weapon.

the mini-magnetopsheric plasma propulsion, or 'plasma sail' i added to give a no reactionmass braking drive. expect the thrust and size of the sail to change in the future, i'm still trying to reverse engineer some figures from the info i have..

*(listed as the more politically nuetral "externally pulsed plasma propulsion", or EPPP, the actual name it's still being researched under. appropriate, since i'm sure the acronym is pronounced much the same as the sound "eep", as in the exclamation one makes apon realizing how your getting around.

)

taalismn · Unread post by **taalismn** » Fri Aug 12, 2011 8:00 pm

Oy. You beat me to using O'Neil Cylinders as starships.

Likewise, the Casaba Howitzers.

glitterboy2098 · Sat Aug 13, 2011 2:31 am

not an o'neill colony. an O'neill colony is only 16km across at it's widest point (the agriculture ring), and only 8km across in the living space, and only 32km long.. you can actually park an entire O'neil island Three colony in the living space of an urbs class ship...

i based the size, look, and interior size on RAMA..only i made it longer and gave a non-reactionless drive..

taalismn · Unread post by **taalismn** » Sat Aug 13, 2011 9:18 am

glitterboy2098 wrote:not an o'neill colony. an O'neill colony is only 16km across at it's widest point (the agriculture ring), and only 8km across in the living space, and only 32km long.. you can actually park an entire O'neil island Three colony in the living space of an urbs class ship...

i based the size, look, and interior size on RAMA..only i made it longer and gave a non-reactionless drive..

Same principle, only writ larger. Big honking colony cylinder pushing along at sublight.

Aramanthus · Unread post by **Aramanthus** » Sun Aug 14, 2011 11:51 pm

It also similiar to "Dragonstar." Dragonstar series By David Bischoff. (Day of the Dragonstar - Night of the Dragonstar- Dragonstar Destiny - David F. Bischoff & Thomas F. Monteleone)

glitterboy2098 · Wed Aug 17, 2011 6:04 pm

haven't done much writing for the site lately. not only are college classes starting back up soon (next week for me), but City of heroes had a double Xp weekend, which sucked up much of my time.

that said, my notes have gotten fairly detailed lately. like how the Wanderers manage to have a stable society that can survive in an artificial enviroment for centuries, despite the 3 generations rule.. as developed by Ken Burnside...without resorting to a totalitarian government.
the solution (IMO) solves the problem within reasonable limits..but the ripple effects of it would give the Wanderers a somewhat alien culture and psychology than people who don't use a similar technique.

glitterboy2098 · Thu Aug 18, 2011 8:47 pm

Centauri dreams has a wonderful interview with a space futurists about worldships. they touch on some of the social issues a worldship society might face (including examples from classic space fiction..some as old as the 1940s!)

this article touches on why social upheavals in a society could be very bad. this is basically the same kind of issue Burnside's "3 generations" rule talks about..only he points out this kind of cycle tends to be very fatal when your in an enclosed system in a very hostile enviroment, where any major social change can result in your enclosed system breaking.

my solution was based on my recently reading a great webcomic, which had elements that made me go "hmm..'
try googling "Brazil has decided you' re cute"

i hope i'm being cryptic enough.. :lol:

Aramanthus · Unread post by **Aramanthus** » Fri Aug 19, 2011 12:05 am

I do enjoy the ships you designed. I know I can find a use for them in my phase world setting.

gaby · Unread post by **gaby** » Fri Aug 19, 2011 8:14 am

The Star Wanderers is Great, I like to see ther military and more ships,maybe they use Mechas.

I hope to see more Aliens.

glitterboy2098 · Sun Aug 21, 2011 5:28 am

actually, i'm thinking powered armor. though some of their non-military technology makes things a little more interesting when applied to soldiers.

i plan to add more aliens, but i suffer from the desire to avoid more humanoids..and to have art for them. (unlike the chor'ii..) thats made aliens a bit harder to do.

taalismn · Unread post by **taalismn** » Mon Aug 22, 2011 7:57 pm

gaby wrote:The Star Wanderers is Great, I like to see ther military and more ships,maybe they use Mechas.

I hope to see more Aliens.

You also might try your own hand at making any(or all) of the above.
Add your own personal techno-signature to the Megaverse.
You'll see results faster and to your personal satisfaction.

Certainly the tools for creating them(especially aliens) are out there, waiting to be taken up and used.

(drill sarge voice)
Exercise that imagination! Think of it as brain exercise! Use it or lose it! Mental muscle or dry rot! If you can visualize it, you can write it down! Let's see some nueron activity! Start with one hundred random names of your own creation for aliens!!! As many syllables in each as you like! Get to it!!! One-TWO! One-TWO!
I can't hear you! YOU AIN"T THINKING HARD ENOUGH!

Aramanthus · Unread post by **Aramanthus** » Mon Aug 22, 2011 11:17 pm

I always enjoy reading about the military aspect of Phase world. And I do use them in my game. So please keep them coming.

gaby · Unread post by **gaby** » Thu Aug 25, 2011 10:57 am

Me too,My player group go,s as a CCW or UWW ships,s crew.

I hope you show more on the Star Wanderers,s info.

taalismn · Unread post by **taalismn** » Thu Aug 25, 2011 5:47 pm

gaby wrote:Me too,My player group go,s as a CCW or UWW ships,s crew.

I hope you show more on the Star Wanderers,s info.

TVIA Inspector Grammar Nazi facepalms:
"I really should have you arrested for murdering the art of punctuation.
It is as follows:
"Me too. My player group goes as a CCW or UWW ship's crew.
I hope you show more on the Star Wanderers."
OR...the latter sentence can be phrased as:
"I hope you show more on the Star Wanderers' info."

Don't make me turn my High-Intensity Red Laser Correction Pen to its megadamage setting."

Aramanthus · Unread post by **Aramanthus** » Thu Aug 25, 2011 11:58 pm

:::hiding behind my MDC super battleship. And looking out from the bridge area.::: "Is it safe to come out now? I think someone is still needing more vacation time." :eek:

taalismn · Unread post by **taalismn** » Fri Aug 26, 2011 1:09 pm

Aramanthus wrote::::hiding behind my MDC super battleship. And looking out from the bridge area.::: "Is it safe to come out now? I think someone is still needing more vacation time."

Sorry, but I just don't see how somebody manages to hit a "," key when attempting to write 'goes', when on a standard keyboard "o", "e", and "s" are nowhere NEAR the "," key.
I have my share of spelling and grammar errors, but I'll acknowledge them when somebody catches me at it, and thank them for the service. I'll even politely ignore the obvious signs of haste that come from typing in a dark room or at three in the morning, having done both myself in the past.
However, to turn a short sentence into a long careen around the keyboard?
I fail my saving roll against AF, then roll a '96' on the Consequences Table.
(THE) HULK (WILL) SMASH (SOMETHING)!

And A? Bridge is the last place to hide out, unless your bridge is in some unorthodox place like behind the ship's mess, away from a) exposed tower-like structures, and b) the ship's center of mass. In the first, such exposed positions are always attracting kamikazes, and in the second, most weapons fly for the biggest target profile, which in this case is the main body of the ship's mass. A good CIC, buried deep in the ship's hull, is your best bet for survival in most cases where your enemy's arsenal isn't capable of simply vaporizing your ship with every fired shot.

Aramanthus · Unread post by **Aramanthus** » Sat Aug 27, 2011 12:30 am

I know this. I was being as silly as you were. LOL I like the Hulk smash routine.

glitterboy2098 · Sun Aug 28, 2011 10:17 pm

the project is not forgotten..i just have to work around a graduate level class schedule, and the need to work on RIFTS:Scandinavia.

currently, i'm debating whether i can use some art i like for the Wanderer's 'cruiser' design, or whether i should have a go at rendering my own version using DOGA-L3. it matches the notes i'd drawn up (a "broadsides missile ship" with a fusion drive)...

taalismn · Unread post by **taalismn** » Mon Aug 29, 2011 5:50 pm

glitterboy2098 wrote:the project is not forgotten..i just have to work around a graduate level class schedule, and the need to work on RIFTS:Scandinavia.

currently, i'm debating whether i can use some art i like for the Wanderer's 'cruiser' design, or whether i should have a go at rendering my own version using DOGA-L3. it matches the notes i'd drawn up (a "broadsides missile ship" with a fusion drive)...

That's pure missile boat right there...

glitterboy2098 · Mon Aug 29, 2011 7:59 pm

i've decided that it would be better to render my own homage to that Homeworld art, to avoid accusations of "conversion"..

i'll probably then make a new 'cover art" for the wanderer's page too.

edit: didn't take long..New Intro page, with a scale view.. sorry for the fuzzyness, it's a side effect of how the site shrinks images. click to see full sized
and some pics to tide you over while i work on stats..
Arbalest class cruiser
Aft, showing the inertial confinement fusion drive

Aramanthus · Unread post by **Aramanthus** » Tue Aug 30, 2011 12:22 am

Very nice. I'm looking forward to reading about this new class.

glitterboy2098 · Tue Aug 30, 2011 12:38 am

i wanted to experiment with an honor harrington style broadside missileboat, and i think the stats will be pretty good.

Aramanthus · Unread post by **Aramanthus** » Tue Aug 30, 2011 11:48 pm

That would be very cool. Are you talking about a podnaught? I'm looking forward to hearing about it.

taalismn · Unread post by **taalismn** » Thu Sep 01, 2011 6:40 pm

I'm already looking at how my own designs are rigged for handling Missile Massacres. :shock:

glitterboy2098 · Thu Sep 01, 2011 11:00 pm

at the moment, i'm debating whether to give them my "Tachyon FTL missile" or not.. ranges measured in lightseconds are cool and all, but would be rather munchkin...

Aramanthus · Unread post by **Aramanthus** » Fri Sep 02, 2011 12:02 am

That would sort of be like Fred Saberhagen's Beserker series. I remember some of the forces against the beserkers used things like that. I'm looking forward to hearing about it.

glitterboy2098 · Fri Sep 02, 2011 2:03 am

actually, they're effectively similar to the "hypermissiles" of Weber's Empire from the ashes series. a missile that pops into a subset of our world which allows faster travel, then pops back out at the target just before hitting it. the version i drew up stats for awhile back has a range of 300,000km using a 1 factor FTL drive... now i'm wondering whether i can give it to anyone and not unbalance my setting..

(honestly, i'm considering saving it for a race that's locked in a war with the chor'ii.. being able to OSK their ships that far out could be the best way to slow them down..)

taalismn · Unread post by **taalismn** » Fri Sep 02, 2011 9:06 am

Aramanthus wrote:That would sort of be like Fred Saberhagen's Beserker series. I remember some of the forces against the beserkers used things like that. I'm looking forward to hearing about it.

I think I remember that...the battleships used big honkin' shells that skipped in and out of space, just below the 'surface' of our reality, before slamming into reality INSIDE the target, still moving at a hefty percentage of light speed. Ouch.

Aramanthus · Unread post by **Aramanthus** » Fri Sep 02, 2011 12:20 pm

That is the one I am talking about Taalismnn. And I know that missile you are talking about GB. I love that series too. It's too bad that it never made it out as an anime. I would loved to have seen Dahak done in that format. I have a lot of the art work somewhere in my files. I saved them off that site shortly after I found out about the project.

glitterboy2098 · Fri Sep 02, 2011 2:13 pm

Aramanthus wrote:That is the one I am talking about Taalismnn. And I know that missile you are talking about GB. I love that series too. It's too bad that it never made it out as an anime. I would loved to have seen Dahak done in that format. I have a lot of the art work somewhere in my files. I saved them off that site shortly after I found out about the project.

you mind sending me a copy? when i found out about that project not long ago, i fired up the wayback machine to get as much as i could, but most of the images were gone.

the C-cannons from the Beserker series are another favorite of mine, and i've actually considered making an "FTL railgun" in the cluster using a similar approach, but it's like the missiles. they drastically effect the game balance.

gaby · Unread post by **gaby** » Fri Sep 02, 2011 4:35 pm

The tech-level of the Races in Enders cluster is lower then the ones of the 3 Galaxies,s power blocs,You can still use them if you want but ther need be some thing that are different like say Lasers weapons,it can only wokr at a size for Capital ships,they will be unstabile if it smaller.

You can make it glitterboy2098,but you also need to say it takes half the ship,s space and it only be found in cruisers.

glitterboy2098 · Fri Sep 02, 2011 8:53 pm

actually for most things it's comparable. the only areas they are deficent in are gravitics tech and thus also the easy storage of antimatter.

they only seem less advanced because gravity control and antimatter are so common in Phase World.

the C-cannon concept is probably less unbalancing than the missile version, since you can easily limit the number of guns per ship, even to the point of them being flying cannons with a ship wrapped around them (like the Taiidan Ion frigates in homeworld..just got that game, it is awesome..)

the missile version you can volley off large numbers of them at once, which is the big unbalancing factor. an itano circus of hyper long range, virtually uninterceptable missiles? ouch..

Aramanthus · Unread post by **Aramanthus** » Thu Sep 08, 2011 12:17 am

Sure GB. I'll be happy to send you a copy of the images I have. I'll assemble it tomorrow after work. It's a little late tonight. I just hope I can find it. I just found it. I have all of the pics from their site. Including scenery pics. I have multiple angles on Nergel if you remember her. I'll have to email you all of this over several emails.

glitterboy2098 · Sat Nov 05, 2011 5:22 pm

quick update...

the name "star wanderers" was always intended as a placeholder, a working title to let me develop the material without getting hung up on what it's called.

after some research and brainstorming, and the help of Taalismn, i've decided to name these people the Sherdena, after one of the Mediterranean Sea Peoples from 4000 years ago.

no new material just yet, only the rename, but more material for the Sherdena is in the works.