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I am creating a planet called Hydrosphere... a water world rich in life. Its ocean floors are covered in killerytte, and Naruni is waging a war against the indigenous peoples so they can mine it.

Its Rifts: Underseas meets Phase World.

So I'm wondering what the depth tolerance for starships is... and how travelling underwater would affect wearing a contra-gravity pack.

Repo Bots under the sea... now that's cool!

No offense intended, but doesn't Hydrosphere sound kinda typical or cliche of what one would expect of an ocean world? Water world, Oceania, Sea World...etc, etc, etc...

For simplicity's sake, I'd let any space ship with Three Galaxies levels of technology operate under any ocean depth. What I wonder about is the addition of force fields. When they form, do they "push" away from the ship like a growing bubble or form instantaneously around the ship? One would form a virtual vacuum layer between the ship and the surrounding ocean and the other would be filled with water. Wouldn't a vacuum layer protect against concussive shocks much more effectively than a water-filled cavity? Being underwater surrounded by raw k-hex would be unpleasant if you had to worry about every shockwave splattering you against a bulkhead.

Besides the contra-gravity pack, what about any contra-gravity field generators? How would they effect the surrounding water? I'd imagine they could greatly disrupt ocean currents, not to mention confuse the hell out of wildlife.

Hydrosphere is the Naruni name for the place (NE 324-6829), who are not all that great at naiming things.

Braden, GMPhD wrote:Hydrosphere is the Naruni name for the place (NE 324-6829), who are not all that great at naiming things.

Ah, that explain it.

el magico -- darklorddc wrote:Naruni Rep: "We'll call it....Hydrosphere...."

Space wolfen buddy: ".....Hydrosphere.......?"

Naruni Rep: "WHAT!? It's wet and round ain't it?"

Space wolfen buddy: "I'd bite you if it didn't promote a stereotype...."

Just for the discussion:

Hydrosphere orbits a yellow dwarf star (just like our Sun), has average gravity, average atmosphere, a ridiculous amount of native life, and a pleasant temperatrure.

The odds of such a place developing are 1: 1.08 million (really. I worked it out). Even rarer since it has killerytte.

Braden, GMPhD wrote:Just for the discussion:

Hydrosphere orbits a yellow dwarf star (just like our Sun), has average gravity, average atmosphere, a ridiculous amount of native life, and a pleasant temperatrure.

The odds of such a place developing are 1: 1.08 million (really. I worked it out). Even rarer since it has killerytte.

It'd be neat if the killaryte on Hydrosphere was formed in a different manner than that located in other areas of the Three Galaxies. Like you say, there is great bio-diversity and biological processess can create some really freaky stuff. If it turned out that there was an organism in the ocean that created the killaryte, that could add whole new facets to the conflict. Splugorth, Gene-Tech, etc, etc, etc.

So uprooting the killerytte reefs impacts all other life in the deep oceans? Is that how it would work?

What's the tech level of the indigenous people? I'm assuming, possibly incorrectly, that it is significantly less than that of Naruni. If relatively primitive, do they employ psionics, ocean magic, super powers, etc. in their conflict with Naruni?

I ask because I'm curious as to how much of a part the killaryte itself will play in the conflict. Is the stuff even explosive in its natural underwater environment or is it deadly enough that the natives are able to fashion it into effective weaponry against Naruni? Anyone else thinking of an analogue to the Naut'Yll Korallyte Shaping magic? Killaryte Shaping...

Force fields and FTL field will not be able to form in a solid Or rather a liquid like water so ff and ftl drives will be useless. A ship will be able to travel up to its atmospheric tolerances. every fathom (roughly six feet) is one atmosphere, so a ship designed to land on gas jiants will be able to support thousands of atmospheres while a small suttle from a space station to an earth like planet bay only be able to sustain 50 or 60 atmospheres. It will depend what the ship is designed for. I would use 1000 atmospheres as the benchmark for most spaceworthy craft making 6000 feet or one nauticle mile the limit for spacecraft which follows what Robotech books say about veritech.

Force field project energy or particles outward to counter the effects of incomming particles or energy. While submerged underwater there would be existing particles of matter getting in the way preventing the force field from creating its protective shiled.

Air is matter too so FFcouldn't form here either?

The line of thought is flawed IMO.

They may not work but that is not the reason.

"Air is matter too so FFcouldn't form here either?

The line of thought is flawed IMO.

They may not work but that is not the reason."

The force field would be constantly pushing watter out of its way. This would cause the water to boil as the forces displace water constantly.

Greyaxe wrote:"Air is matter too so FFcouldn't form here either?

The line of thought is flawed IMO.

They may not work but that is not the reason."

The force field would be constantly pushing watter out of its way. This would cause the water to boil as the forces displace water constantly.

Ok you totally lost me there. Water boils from either high temp or low pressure. Does the Ff heat the water or does it cause the pressure inside the FF to lower enough (near vacuume) to cause the water to boil?

Your post makes little sense as is and didn't address the fact that FF form with matter (air) in their space all the time. I've never seen anything that says that they can only form in a vacuume.

Force field would displace the water creating a vacum and causing it to boil. When ff displace air it has somewhere to go and doesn't create a vacum. My argument is that ff can not displace the water without either boiling it or causing the ff to fail altogether.

There is no evidence to suggest that a FF causes a vacuume in the space it is protecting.

Regardless of the reason why I believe force fields fail underwater can we agree that force fields do not work underwater.

I think the big prob is that we have no idea how FF might actually work, since they are handwavium.

Are they a magnetic field? Are they like a solid wall?

And is there any canon evidence concerning a building or other structure being covered by a FF... because if they can work on land, they most likely work underwater...

Phalanx wrote:

Greyaxe wrote:Regardless of the reason why I believe force fields fail underwater can we agree that force fields do not work underwater.

No, I don't agree.

I agree with your disagreement.

FF should have no problem working under water or in atmosphere or even if it would cross through a solid (like your standing too close to a table).

Braden, GMPhD wrote:I think the big prob is that we have no idea how FF might actually work, since they are handwavium.

Are they a magnetic field? Are they like a solid wall?

And is there any canon evidence concerning a building or other structure being covered by a FF... because if they can work on land, they most likely work underwater...

they have all sorts of FF for armor and bots these are often in contact with the ground and are surrunded by matter (air).

I picture Phase World force fields as a bubble that sits 40' off the hull of the ship. Since it stops missiles, railgun slugs, and energy beams, it is obviously some kind of "energy wall".

So FF would be able to go up under water... but a few things to keep in mind:

If you raise shields while under water, there will be a layer of water between the ship and your shields (40' of water) that will have to be drained somehow. The remedy is to raise shields before you go under the waves.

FFs might have some kind of frequency that drives oceanic life either insane or away... GMs choice.

We need to agree whether or not shields can buckle under pressure. A ship might be able to go two miles down... but will the force field hold? (my feeling is that there is a pressure limit, however ridiculously high, otherwise you could go to the core of a gas giant and be just fine).

And Greyaxe... I liked your other icon better...

I figure FFs would buckle, I can't imagine a Doombringer ramming a Protector and then jsut bouncing off cause the FF was still at full power.
Also figure that fighteres and shuttles would have skin tight FFs, and anything bigger would have a big bubble like one

Yeah. I read about the plasma window. It's kind of cool.

typically in 'handwave' sci-fi though forcefeilds tend to be gravity or anti-gravity based.

since in phaseworld they've mastered gravitic's to the point of absurdity, the PW forcefeilds are likely anti-gravity 'shells' around the ship.

Forcefields wouldn't work underwater, at least not work to keep water either in or out. Water would flow through the force field unless the ship was traveling at absurd speed underwater.

After all, force fields are NOT environmental. ALA: Not water tight.

On another point: Any space ship could be used as a submersable. 1) they are made of MDC, and usually hundreds of points of it. 2) They are at least slightly armored, and thier armor is to protect against collisions from such things as meteors, missiles, and other ships. These things would produce far more inward force than mere ocean preasure at a couple hundred feet. 3) Contragravity (the most common drives in the megaverse) don't seem to require either an inlet (like to cool the engines or such), or an exhaust (like a rockets flaming rear) so they are fully contained units that would neither suck in water, or expell heat/waste.
Basicly the ship would just float through the water nicely as long as the speed was kept at a relitivly moderate speed of a few miles per hour or such.

Unless is states in black & white, in my games force fields are air-tight...why? Because thats convenient. Only referable cannon...T.K. ff...very last part of the description.

Syndicate wrote:Unless is states in black & white, in my games force fields are air-tight...why? Because thats convenient. Only referable cannon...T.K. ff...very last part of the description.

Black and White? No prob.

Page 121 of Phase World Dimension Book 2: "The force field offers no protection against gases or hostile environments, including intense heat. A field wearer can drown if submerged in a body of water or burn to death if caught in the middle of a fire..."

Page 127 Mercenaries book: "Unlike environmental armor, the force field offers no protection against magic, psionics, disease, gases, water, heat, cold, radiation or other hostile environments. This means the user of the force field can drown if submerged under water, bake in the sun, burn from the heat of a fire, choke on a toxic gas cloud, and so on."

Cannon enough for ya?? After all, we ARE discussing technological force fields as found on spacecraft, NOT magical or psionic ones.

Look at it this way:

By the time you are talking about vehicles that can not only exist in the vacuum of space, but can handle FTL Gravitic Propulsion, they would need to be capable of equal pressure levels in or outward. Otherwise, the variable stresses of space flight would tear the craft apart. In space, you still need to overcome mass vs. inertia (or if you are stock still, negative inertia) and these pressures can be an order of magnitude above that of simply getting through a few atmopheres of water.

If we accept that a gravity drive cancels out the pull of gravity from all other directions but one, then the instant that vehicle engages the gravity drive, all of the gravity being exerted by the universe in one direction is being placed on that vehicle.

This is why in certain Sci-Fi environments, they have a Structural Integrity Field. This would also be required to counteract the effects of inertia on any living creature inside of a ship, so that when the ship went FTL, the entire crew would not end up as a sticky pulp on the rear bulkhead.

Easy house rule to follow: so long as the craft has shields, it also has an operable structural integrity field. Should the shields fail, figure that the craft has about the same SI as an equivalent submersible (I.E. a space fighter can handle the pressure a Manta Ray personal submersible could handle, a cruiser could handle what a small attack sub could handle, A CCW Protector Class Warship could likely tolerate twice the depth as the Ticonderoga, etc. (all estimates based on length, girth, and mass).

Note that the field is not protecting the contact with water, simply providing the craft with a reinforcement to it's rigid hull to keep from being crushed. Force fields to keep oxygen in and vacuum/gasses/hazardous environments out would need to be custom built, and other space opera fiction covered that well with sealants and semisolid patches slding into place from holds in the walls of craft should they be breached. Much more logical than the scene in ST: Generations where they stare out into the vacuum of space when the sensor dish is obliterated, taking old Captain Toupee with it!

Also remember that many spacecraft have nothing inherent in their construction to get the from the vacuum of space to the watrer of any planet, and if they did, remember they would need to cool down for a long time so as not to SHATTER when the superheated metal craft hit the cold ocean water.

Kicking thoughts around, and realizing I have way way way too much time on my hands!

-Daikuma

So...

The end result is: force fileds do work underwater, but are "porus"; they cannot be used to replace walls or bulkheads. They will stop damage, but water will still fill the 40' space between the ships' hull, and the field.

... I'd just use the MDC Value of the shield as a measure of how many pressures it can hold.. and Variable FF can be made Solid, since they are in effect variable, but otherwise, Most Non transatmospheric ships can't handle undertwater, but those that use anti gravity Can.

fidgewinkle wrote:
I agree with the need for structural integrity, but you create a "structural integrity field" that is unnecessary. There are two elements necessary to serve the purpose of your "structural integrity field". The ship's frame needs to be able to withstand incredibly strong forces and the crew needs to be protected from positive and negative acceleration forces. The ship's frame withstands incredibly strong forces by the virtue of its strength. It is a very strong MDC structure, it was designed to handle the abuse. This is what would make most spacecraft able to handle the comparatively wimpy pressure of being underwater. The crew can be protected by gravitic compensation. If you can create or nullify gravity, you need only to create a gravitic force to nullify the force produced by acceleration.

I remember reading on this pseudo-science years ago. It was for Star Trek, I believe, but the thinking was basically thus: regardless of the structural strength of the materials used in construction, no physical craft could withstand the warping of space, or moving faster than the speed of light. Einstein postulated that matter could not move at the speed of light, and science fiction maintains you would need to warp space to do it, effectively not moving faster, but changing the laws of physics (Captain).

The SI (Structural Integrity) field was required to in effect "shore up" the craft itself, so that the tidal forces exerting enough pressure to warp physical space itself would leave the craft in one piece to do the job it was designed to do, in this case, contain the space warping reaction.

Now since Phase World doesn't use Warp science, but contra-gravity (primarily - I don't think this would apply to Rift Drives, and Phase ships are free of tidal forces, being rendered out of phase with physical space), I think the issue would be even more important, seeing as if you were to cancel out all of the other gravity acting on an object but that gravity in one vector, the shear forces on the vehicle would be so massive, that some sort of field with a power level equal to that of the CG field would be needed to protect the craft from flying apart the instant it was engaged (even if the craft was SDC, because we have never stated that an FTL craft had to MDC to survive, or did we?)

-Daikuma

hiya all

1. i myself has created a so called blue world for my phase world campaign, it is isolated and there are a number of factors that limit the access to the planet surface including an asteroid field that has been caught in the planets gravitational pull and is now laying around the planet itself. the asteroids are anywhere from pebble size to a small volkswagon size and they are filled with all kinds of weird metals that effectively create random electrical and magnetic fields because they spin at very high speeds. In effect these fields are totally unpredictable and they disrupt any force field within seconds, which means that any spacecraft going through this field will be grinded down and destroyed within minutes. also the faster u go the more damage the spacecraft hull sustains from the meteoroids. some clever people have calculated that about every 3-4 weeks random holes appear in the astreroid "cover" and it is possible to reach the surface in a 2 hour window. the planets atmosphere is also crazy and lightning storms, or storms generally are very frequent. most of the technological equipment on the planet has been shielded to protect it againt the atmospheric conditions.
this of course limits the access to the planet, but in addition to this there are some very powerful workmans guilds (unions if u will) that have major political influence and because of the planets incredible long naval history and tradition of transporting cargo by ship, spacecrafts have been banned when it comes to intercontinental cargo shipping. i must stress that it is illegal for outsiders (or anybody) to use spacecraft for anything but land and take off from the planets surface, breaking the law means having the cargo impounded/taken and a very stiff fine. in effect this is how i have created an "underseas" world without spacecrafts, let me know what u think.

2. Other than that i believe that most spacecrafts are build so that they can withstand the pressure of being deep underwater. i dont have my mindwerks book with me, but if memory serves me correctly the Gene-Splicer spacecraft described in there says something about depth tolerance - will soemone look it up?

3. i myself have been wondering about forcefields underwater, and if braden is correct with the following:

Braden wrote:
The end result is: force fileds do work underwater, but are "porus"; they cannot be used to replace walls or bulkheads. They will stop damage, but water will still fill the 40' space between the ships' hull, and the field.

if this is true (and i believe it is), does this add to the drag of the underwater vessel, i mean does it reduce the speed or effect the maneuverability of the vessel when the forcefield bubble is filled with water? i mean the field may be "porus", but that doesnt necessarily mean that the water flows through the field completely unhindered and at the same speeds that it would without the energy barrier...

4. a last question, when i am swimming i quickly become aware of the fact that i am not as fast or maneuverable in water as i am on land - i hope we agree that this is true for all humans. now some RCCs like the Amphib for example gain additional dodge bonuses while in water, which is cool and understandable. i think humans should be assigned penalties, maybe even severe penaties when in water, i havent been able to find such penalties anywhere, what do u people think?

c ya

if this is true (and i believe it is), does this add to the drag of the underwater vessel, ...

The only thing we would have in the books upon which to base a decision are the Intruder ships. Their force fields create no drag at all. So.... I'd say no, shields create no noticable drag effect.

The ship on the other hand, very well might. A Warshield cruiser is not shaped like a dolphin. But a Kreeghor ship, with its hull being fashioned out of a sea creature to start with, should have no trouble.

The home planet of the Horned Whales (CS Navy) shows up in Fleets of the Three Galaxies...

it's being attacked by the Naruni.

That sounds interesting!

Their homeworld, "Hydrosphere", has rich deposits of killeryte.