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Thread: Asteroid Hulls in Spacedock

  1. #1
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    Asteroid Hulls in Spacedock

    Last night during a playing session I had the idea for my next adventure...
    While exploring a new Sector the Players ship discovers a huge Asteroid travelling at very low Warp Speed. A primitive Race, barely able to reach Warp Speeds needed to evacuate their home world and uses the Asteroid as a huge sleeper ship. The Race built all necessary equipment in tunnels dug deep into the metallic core of the Asteroid, including thousands of cryogenic units, with over 400.000 people hold within cryogenic sleep, The ship is monitored by a semi self-aware Computer who awakens some Technicians to perform maintenance work and effect repairs. After a lengthy journey of at least 150 years at warp one the ship finally starts to fall apart cryogenic units break down and the fatality rate soars upwards.

    My question is could a Asteroid hull with a primitive SIF be able to attain warp speeds at all without breaking apart, and how big should it be.
    It needs at least 6700 SU’s for Cryogenic units alone. So it has to be a really Asteroid.
    What do you think? Would this be feasible?

  2. #2
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    I think that, since your players certainlyl won't try to cut the asteroid to pieces with phasers, there is no need to give it any stats at all, hence you don't have to worry about how much space a warp drive, SIF generators and the other components need. Let's just assume that everything you want to be in there fits into the asteroid (if the asteroid was too small, the race would have certainly chosen an other one ).
    Although I like the basic idea, I see several problems. First, why is the asteroid able to travel 150 light years? Was the nearest inhabitable planet detectable by the races' sensors really that far away? And if it wasn't, why was there so much more fuel than necessary? Maybe you should discard the idea that the asteroid is travelling at warp and assume instead, that it is travelling a slow sub-light speed, 0.05c, for example. Actually that wouldn't be that slow, acellerating a whole asteroid to that speed would still require a lot of energy and a high degree of technical knowledge.
    Undoubtedly, there would have been several back-ups, to prevent this kind of scenario. What happened to them?
    Has the AI woken up repair teams at the moment, or is it also affected. If yes, in what way?
    If repair teams are awake, why can't they take care of the problem?
    If they are not, you might have a big problem. In that case, the Prime Directive might prohibit the crew from interfering. No official request for help has been made, and fate doesn't seem to be on the race's side.

    I'm curious, how did the survivors intend to get off the asteroid onto the surface of their new home planet?
    “Worried? I’m scared to death. But I’ll be damned if I’m going to let them change the way I live my life.” - Joseph Sisko - Paradise Lost

  3. #3
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    I think that, since your players certainlyl won't try to cut the asteroid to pieces with phasers, there is no need to give it any stats at all,

    I wouldn't go so far as to give it no stats at all, but a full Spacedock workup is definitely overkill for a non-combat vessel. I'd go for a standard desciptive treatment, similar to a basic ICON writeup.

  4. #4
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    So far it was just a basic idea and i was trying to circumvent the prime directive in
    giving the aliens slow warp capability in the first. Thus making First Contact not a matter of discussion, as my players love to debate such issues for a long time, bogging down play.
    The damage is mainly to the cryogenic units as i took the rules for them out of SRM4 which gives each unit a basic lifespan of about 50 years.
    I also thought that the Aliens figured that the Aliens wont have much knowledge about their surroundings and their Sensors are of lower TOS quality.
    I have not decided if the AI is affected, but yes i start to like the Idea that the Computersystem is having some glitches creeping in its systems.

  5. #5
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    If you want to settle the Prime Directive problem, here's a suggestion :
    The asteroid's systems are indeed starting to deteriorate, but not too severely. However, this is enough to alter the sensor's reading of the PC's ship, who should then detect a vast technobabble field on the asteroid (the asteroid hull could shield the lifesigns aboard from the sensors).
    Hence, while trying to study or even correct the technobabble thingy, they would unknowingly make the matter worse for the asteroid people...

    I have however no suggestion right now about the technobabble problem.
    "The main difference between Trekkies and Manchester United fans is that Trekkies never trashed a train carriage. So why are the Trekkies the social outcasts?"
    Terry Pratchett

  6. #6
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    Actually Turn the problem upside down on it's head.. You said it is traveling at 'low warp' but did it actually retain 'warp speed' or simply use warp physics to lower it's mass. As an example.. in 'the emisary' DS9; first episode; Obrien uses the shield generator to create a stable suspace field around the station to lower it's effective mass and use thrusters designed only for orbital correction, to fly it accross the Bajoran system!.. Multiply your mass by thousands and you have created the same solution!

    The asteroid might have been traveling at sub warp speeds , but using a 'warp drive' to do it. This actually solves more problems than using a normal chemical or fusion engine, because you are lowering it's mass, hence solving the structural integrity problem, and it is not actually 'moving' but space is moving round it.

    'Impulse' engines also use the same technique to accelerate starships at high speeds without burning through their fuel in minutes, because it has a 'Space Time Driver' Coil assembly which creates a low level susbpace field, which lowers the inertial mass of the ship therefre increasing the ammount of acceleration it can give for much less fuel! Obrien, doing what he did with Terrok Nor, is much the same, he made a fake impulse engine..

    The largest problem the asteroid would face, however, would be in sustaining a field that large, which probably explains why it can't attain High warp (or even break the light speed barrier).. and as the field fluctuates this would then create huge structural integrity problems! If one part of the ship is both heavier and traveling at a different speed, it's going to rip appart. A Starship can compensate by artificially reinforcing it's super-uber alloy hull strength using forcefields (THe SIF).. but doing that to a relativelly low desity asteroid is going to be a problem, hence also another good reason for the ship to be traveling at subluminal speeds... If part of it does drop out of the warp field it's not so bad as if it was traveling at warp!

    Possible reasons for the system beginning to fail could be literal rents forming inside the asteroids.. tectonic stresses are creating shears in the mass, thus shearing power cables / EPS systems / ODN networks and or physically exposing chambers to space as bits of the rock fall off!!

    I also agree it probably doesn't really need 'stats', much as you don't need to 'stat' a planetoid
    Ta Muchly

  7. #7
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    Additionally, if it is traveling at sub-luminal speeds this also solves the dilema of 'how does a culture with low warp technology detect a planet 150 light years away, accuratelly enough to determine it is suitable for life' if might only be 50 or less lightyears away.

    It has to be said playing in an environment, in spacesuits, with bits of the aseroid falling about your ears, while you try and repair it would be an extremelly cool visual experience.

    Prime directive problems need not be.. Or rather part of the challenge.. the computer wakes up people.. the people spot a ship and hail it for help... no prime directive problems They are also a post-warp society after a fashion, so it does not matter AS much, had they been a pre-warp civilisation it might have. Unlike the TOS episode 'for I have touched the sky' (or something) those people were blissfuly unaware of who and what they wwre, which is bad for cultural contamination, but people on this ship are fully aware and the awake people will of course be technology literate! o course other than this the actual 'first contact' problem is uite huge, because these people may not realise they are not alone in the universe!
    Ta Muchly

  8. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tobian
    Actually Turn the problem upside down on it's head.. You said it is traveling at 'low warp' but did it actually retain 'warp speed' or simply use warp physics to lower it's mass. As an example.. in 'the emisary' DS9; first episode; Obrien uses the shield generator to create a stable suspace field around the station to lower it's effective mass and use thrusters designed only for orbital correction, to fly it accross the Bajoran system!.. Multiply your mass by thousands and you have created the same solution!

    The asteroid might have been traveling at sub warp speeds , but using a 'warp drive' to do it. This actually solves more problems than using a normal chemical or fusion engine, because you are lowering it's mass, hence solving the structural integrity problem, and it is not actually 'moving' but space is moving round it.

    'Impulse' engines also use the same technique to accelerate starships at high speeds without burning through their fuel in minutes, because it has a 'Space Time Driver' Coil assembly which creates a low level susbpace field, which lowers the inertial mass of the ship therefre increasing the ammount of acceleration it can give for much less fuel! Obrien, doing what he did with Terrok Nor, is much the same, he made a fake impulse engine..

    The largest problem the asteroid would face, however, would be in sustaining a field that large, which probably explains why it can't attain High warp (or even break the light speed barrier).. and as the field fluctuates this would then create huge structural integrity problems! If one part of the ship is both heavier and traveling at a different speed, it's going to rip appart. A Starship can compensate by artificially reinforcing it's super-uber alloy hull strength using forcefields (THe SIF).. but doing that to a relativelly low desity asteroid is going to be a problem, hence also another good reason for the ship to be traveling at subluminal speeds... If part of it does drop out of the warp field it's not so bad as if it was traveling at warp!

    I have thought about a similar solution.
    I figured the Aliens a race called Werlons desperately tried to escape their dying world.
    They have only very basic knowledge about Warpfield theory and they actually built some kind of SIF in order to keep the Asteroid from falling apart but it is not working perfect and needs huge amounts of energy, more than the onboard generators can supply at once. Instead the energy is stored an then used in a short Warp speed burst. They are only able to travel at a fraction of Warp speed (with Warp one being the upper limit) with the Asteroid and then only for a few minutes. The AI manages all maneuvers concerned with the Warp field and is programmed to shut the Warp field down as the primitive SIF approaches critical levels.
    The Asteroid Ship coasts for some time as Fusion power plants are generating enough power to once again start cycle. Figured that it is only possible to a few Warp bursts a day so travelling is painfully slow with the Asteroid, but then again it is a sleeper ship.
    As for the Stats I agree that it is not necessary to give it full stats, as the Asteroid is not going to be armed with more than some nuclear Missiles or Laser Systems, mainly intended to clear Debris than serve as weapons. The Werlons don’t have transporters but instead have a fleet of about 100 Size 3 Impuls driven Ships used mainly for Transportation. Some of the Ships are lightly armed but the whole bunch of them is not able to put up a fight if pressed to do so.
    Stats that could be useful are, in my opinion, are: Size (just to tell the players how big the Asteroid is), Power Generated, Number of Cryogenic units, Sensor Strength, and Weapons available (just to tell the players that this is not a toothless sitting duck), and the average travelling speed. Everything else, including the stats for the primitive SIF is not necessary.
    I imagined the players discovering the Warp field signature appearing and vanishing on their sensors, alerting them if something is amiss. The Werlons will not try to contact them as only repair crews will be awake and the sensors are operated by the AI, so only the AI is aware of the approaching ship. The AI is not programmed for such an eventuality but will start to wake leaders of the Werlons. The Idea is to get the Werlons to a nearby empty Class M Planet The Werlons have had no contact with other races before and indeed believe to be the only sentient race in the universe, the Werlons will probably not heed the advice of the crew but instead turn to a Class M planet which is a Joint Klingon-Federation Colony only recently established. Naturally neither the Federation Colonists nor the Klingons will be keen on sharing the planet with the reclusive Werlons, who are not able to integrate themselves intoantoher society full of strange Aliens.

  9. #9
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    Sounds like it could be a grower episode then.. leading on to more episodes in the future

    it sounds liek a fairly reasonable solution to your problem.. hope I helped
    Ta Muchly

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