First - Valles. I was always under the impression that the Moondance was speed-based (quite possibly a gravitophilic speed-based). In particular, you seem to have built it for quick and easy ground-to-orbit trips with heavy loads. Escaping out of gravity wells is one of the things that speed systems are *best* at. (Not having to spend energy keeping the thing up while you lift it off is a huge benefit all by itself - as is the fact that they don't have to speed up/slow down anywhere near as gradually. These are really *very* short hops, from a fenspace point of view.) Then, of course, you've plated it in some nice, heavy armor shielding, so it lifts and lands like a polite meteor, but masses too much to go all that fast in the outer void.
Second, for those who *are* running with accel systems (or significantly nonstandard speed systems) could we have some description of same?
Third, for the racing thing... I like the idea of the freaky souped-up all-gauges-redlined hybrid racing *thing*. Given that you've basically gutted it in order to provide two almost-but-not-entirely independant drive systems (and crossing over between them, in both directions, might well be... entertaining... when done at any velocity too far from local grav-nuetral) it's totally reasonable to be playing wacky games where the accel system lets you break the ordinary top-speed rules on the straightaways while the speed system gives you maneuverability that no accel system can match. (One question to answer, though... what happens if you swap to the speed system when you're *already* moving faster than it can sustain?) I'm a little concerned about the idea of it being a reaction drive, though. I've not the background to run the numbers, but the speeds we're dealing with are expressed as percentages of c. Having the sort of kludge you're thinking of make sense from a racing perspective would require that your accel drive be able to make a significant difference in top speed above that, over the course of however long your straightaways are. That requires some downright scary numbers with respect to exhaust velocity and ship mass percentage per time unit thrown out backwards - and then you have to figure out how much of the ship *is* reaction mass, and work out how long your accel drive can actually go for. On the other hand, once you *did* work that out, well, if and when the boskonians come knocking, he'll have one hell of an improvised plasma lance.
Second, for those who *are* running with accel systems (or significantly nonstandard speed systems) could we have some description of same?
Third, for the racing thing... I like the idea of the freaky souped-up all-gauges-redlined hybrid racing *thing*. Given that you've basically gutted it in order to provide two almost-but-not-entirely independant drive systems (and crossing over between them, in both directions, might well be... entertaining... when done at any velocity too far from local grav-nuetral) it's totally reasonable to be playing wacky games where the accel system lets you break the ordinary top-speed rules on the straightaways while the speed system gives you maneuverability that no accel system can match. (One question to answer, though... what happens if you swap to the speed system when you're *already* moving faster than it can sustain?) I'm a little concerned about the idea of it being a reaction drive, though. I've not the background to run the numbers, but the speeds we're dealing with are expressed as percentages of c. Having the sort of kludge you're thinking of make sense from a racing perspective would require that your accel drive be able to make a significant difference in top speed above that, over the course of however long your straightaways are. That requires some downright scary numbers with respect to exhaust velocity and ship mass percentage per time unit thrown out backwards - and then you have to figure out how much of the ship *is* reaction mass, and work out how long your accel drive can actually go for. On the other hand, once you *did* work that out, well, if and when the boskonians come knocking, he'll have one hell of an improvised plasma lance.