 May 9, 2017 - 7:11am | Would it be possible to misjump into a Dyson sphere? Or rather would this be a practical plot hook? For example the post void jump speed is quite high, not sure if there is enough space to maneuver within the Dyson sphere. Or if there is enough time for a bail out if necessary? Almost want the PC's ship to crash anyway to force exploration of the sphere. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 May 9, 2017 - 8:35am | Now that's an adventure idea! The PCs might have to do an emergency stopping burn -- full thrust, well beyond the 1 G normal -- to avoid crashing. Maybe it's where the mysterious Tetrarch Societies went to! Joe Cabadas |
 May 9, 2017 - 3:58pm | At 1 g, it takes about 3AU to stop from jump speed. So unless the sphere was large, then no, there wouldn't be enough room to slow down. However at a slightly higher emergency decleration rate, you could do it. Ad Astra Per Ardua! My blog - Expanding Frontier Webmaster - The Star Frontiers Network & this site Founding Editor - The Frontier Explorer Magazine Managing Editor - The Star Frontiersman Magazine |
 May 9, 2017 - 8:02pm | Since you would not be emerging into a vacuum I would think the results would be very bad. If the "space" ship is not built to work in an atmosphere I would have a difficult time working its engines especially ion engines. Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
 May 9, 2017 - 8:55pm | Counting the shell of the sphere 's hull. star and atmosphere you're looking at something like .9-.8 AU sounds about right. Doesn't give you any room at all. |
May 9, 2017 - 10:15pm | Counting the shell of the sphere 's hull. star and atmosphere you're looking at something like .9-.8 AU sounds about right. Doesn't give you any room at all. Man the lifeboats! Wait, those might need to slow down too. Maybe the sphere has a repulsor field inside... why? I dunno. Joe Cabadas |
 May 10, 2017 - 7:35am | If you mean a realistic Dyson sphere, there's no chance of crashing into atmosphere, because there is none. If you mean an unrealistic Dyson sphere in which a solid shell completely surrounds a star, just wave your hands and say there's an atmosphere a few miles deep from the inner surface, which your ship bypasses when it exits the Void, and beyond it there is vacuum until you reach the star. The hollow-shell idea is so wildly impossible there's no point in trying to be realistic about any of its features. |
May 10, 2017 - 7:38am | Even with the cassic Dyson sphere: a small sun completely enclosed you won't have atmosphere in the entire area- only a few miles deep at the inside skin of the shell. Note some of the reading I've done over the past few years gests that the classic Dyson sphere is unworkerable. Ie. even a small star will cook the inside. However, I think it's a fun idea worthy of use in SF and I liked the TNG episode where Picard and company visited a classic Dyson sphere and almost became trapped inside as the star went super Nova. More than likely a ring world or one of the Dyson shell variants is more realudtic despite the super engineering required. Re: life boats and momentum: this is overlooked in rules I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
May 10, 2017 - 7:48am | Forget cooking the inside. A Dyson shell is unworkable because (a) there's nothing to hold matter to the inner surface of the sphere—everything falls toward the star, (b) you'd have to mine the complete contents of many star systems to get enough matter to produce the shell, and (c) no known or theorized material could withstand the gravity of a star in that configuration (though there are ideas of sending masses on tracks around the inside of the shell several times orbital velocity to produce a centripetal force supporting the structure). Make no mistake: Dyson speculated about a set of solar-collection sattlites encompassing a star in a spherical configuration, not about a shell. |
 May 19, 2017 - 5:44pm | Depends on the scale and composition. If it is like Cuckoo from the Saga of Cuckoo - no way, the shells are full of ... stuff. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saga_of_Cuckoo If its a super-Dyson sphere using the same construction principles as Cuckoo, then sure plenty of room to jump in and decel, and jump out - and not even realize you're inside unless you notice something funny about the starfield... |
 May 21, 2017 - 11:18am | Well if your Sphere is big enough and we don't worry about why it would not work, and than I see no problem with poping into the non atmosphere section per say but you need to consider decleration towards the sun in question. Orbit would be treated as imagining the ship running parrel to the big ball's inside at the same game distances, might have to be done manually, the computer navigation programs would probably be freaking out as they are not set up to orbit inside a big ball, only outside big objects... so I would cretae some situations around that. Also how to get out might be a thing in a dead alien Dyson Sphere, your PCs or computer systems will not be able to see stars to calculate a jump out.. so the adventure of finding a way out, dealing with alien tech, alien security, and maybe a reason the aliens abandonded the Sphere... Sphere could be taken over by robots, hit by a plague, unstablity of some sort who knows. Sounds like a fun thing, maybe the sphere is autoamted but contains tons of habitats a huge gallactic zoological exhibit... someone's big zoo. "Never fire a laser at a mirror." |
May 23, 2017 - 12:22pm | Perhaps the sphere is so big that it and the star create a huge gravity well reaching into void space. This makes it a missjump magnet. PCs are the first. Didn't Steve Jackson produce a Ring world setting book for GURPS? This might be a resource for ideas. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
May 23, 2017 - 6:20pm | Another site with cool info: http://www.dennisantinori.com/RingworldRPG/13123.html "Never fire a laser at a mirror." |
