[Pred the Penguin]

The further towards the center of the gravity section you go, the less speed the block travels at and thus also has less gravity. If you build a tunnel through the very center of that section you can enter and exit it as easily as we go through one of those turning doors often used for shopping mall main entrances.... or rather float, since we talk zero g in the center of the gracity block.

Good point, I know how that works... but it still seems hazardous no?

[Darius]

Probably the same method as a crew of an EA Omega goes from non-spinning to spinning

[headdie]

using fairly simple timing controls you could have a coil based transfer lift system.  A weighted "bottom" to the car would ensure correct orientation.

[Destiny]

That still doesn't explain how you get on the centrifuge.

Holes in the central axle. Or do you mean finding a way to strap yourself on the outside of the centrifuge?

[General Battuta]

The spinning piece has a well known canonical function:




it is a melee weapon to destroy attacking fighters

5 to 6 times G in the outer parts (given the error margin, this could be between, say, 4G to 10G).

it is also a high gravity weightlifting deck to keep the pilots super buff

[Luis Dias]

Now it makes sense!

[Destiny]

The spinning piece has a well known canonical function:




it is a melee weapon to destroy attacking fighters

Heh, all the spinny sections of UEF big ships are made to kill fighters trying to do a melee, but the best fighterswatter is the GTSC Faustus. They're huge!

[-Norbert-]

I thought the best fighter-swatter was a manouvering Colossus...

[Destiny]

Well we're talking about the spinny-thingies on ships, and the Colossus doesn't possess one so...

[Pred the Penguin]

The Colossus is a capital ship swatter.

[Colonol Dekker]

I think this is digging too deeply into it. Hasanyone ever calculated the same for an Omega destroyer or asked how the pegasus inverted recovery pilots end up the right way up? Too much science kills the fiction

[LordPomposity]

"The most noteworthy design concept is the utilisation of a rotating section, creating gravity for those aboard the vessel. This greatly reduces the need for power hungry gravity plating, and serves as a platform for the ships medium range sensor arrays giving them an outstanding field of view. It also acts as a centrifugal power generator that powers most of the secondary subsystems leaving the main reactors free to deliver more power to the engines, weapons and other primary subsystems. - UEFg Karuna

 

If the rotating section's rotational kinetic energy is being used to generate electricity, then it's going to slow down as it rotates. To keep it spinning at a constant rate, the reactors will have to power it. Otherwise you're getting energy out of nowhere. Assuming 100% efficiency in all involved energy transfers (which is by definition a flawed assumption), you're breaking even on the energy load on the reactor while adding a needless and easily-disrupted step in the power flow.

I know this is FreeSpace, and I'll further preface this by reiterating that Blue Planet is awesome, but Christ on a ****ing bike. That's right up there with the "focused afocal maser" from Eve Online.

[General Battuta]

I'm pretty sure that tech description is not actually -

Let me go check

Uh yeah that tech description was patched out a long time ago because it doesn't make any sense. It was never even in War in Heaven.

[LordPomposity]

Well, that's a relief. 

As for the intensity of gravity on the rotating sections, if we're talking 6g at the tips, the gravity at the widest points would be pretty Earth-like. Still potentially problematic considering that many of the UEF's soldiers grew up in significantly less than Earth gravity, though.

[ZeroCooL]

 Ok Ok, just wondering, I think it will be free of speculation for each

[Dragon]

Most quaters are most likely in the central section, with a lower gravity section for those from the planets/moons with lower g.
The rest is armor, storage areas, flashing lights, sensors, etc.

[--Steve-O--]

I'm going to make UV colored beams.
They're going to make your monitor output UV light to give people Vitamin D!

   curing vitamin deficiency across the globe.

"The most noteworthy design concept is the utilisation of a rotating section, creating gravity for those aboard the vessel. This greatly reduces the need for power hungry gravity plating, and serves as a platform for the ships medium range sensor arrays giving them an outstanding field of view. It also acts as a centrifugal power generator that powers most of the secondary subsystems leaving the main reactors free to deliver more power to the engines, weapons and other primary subsystems. - UEFg Karuna

not to fuel a fire or anything here but if i had to model the internals of this part it would have a central corridor or tram way running down the middle to allow access to  each end of the ship. inside would contain braking and starting systems (never know when you'll need to arrest the rotation) and a a contra-rotating component to counter act the torque. as far as over coming friction, the amount of juice required to keep the thing moving would be negligible as its momentum would do most of the work. besides, if humans haven't devised a really good friction less bearing by the 23 hundreds...well....then we suck.
just throwin' that in there for fun. besides...its freespace, if we want sound in space then damnit we should have it!

now that i think about that would be kinda a fun side project "tour the inside of a karuna!"

[Snail]

now that i think about that would be kinda a fun side project "tour the inside of a karuna!"

[LordPomposity]

as far as over coming friction, the amount of juice required to keep the thing moving would be negligible as its momentum would do most of the work. besides, if humans haven't devised a really good friction less bearing by the 23 hundreds...well....then we suck.

To clarify, what I took issue with wasn't overcoming friction. That's possible even with modern technology. The problem was with using the rotating section to generate power, which would necessitate sapping its rotational kinetic energy (which would in turn need to be replenished by the reactor).

But GB knew what I was talking about, and also knew it was nonsense, so it was never in WiH, anyways.

And I second Snail's motion.

[General Battuta]

You could just put chemical jets on the spinny bit and spin it that way :V: