On 06/07/16 01:27, Jeffrey Schwartz wrote:
> Back in 2013, I participated in the Ham "HI to Juno" event, and that
> got me all hyped up about the Juno probe.
> Last night, I stayed up late watching NASA TV.
>
>
> And that got me thinking this morning about gas giants, magnetic
> fields, radiation, and debris.
>
> From the descriptions of Jupiter's environment is, fuel skimming
> sounds a _lot_ more exciting than the rules imply it is.  That, or the
> comment someone made a while back about mishap on 7+ is a good rule.
>
> The other thought that came to mind is that for a gravitic-capable
> spacecraft, the options would be different.
> You could approach from over the pole, like Juno did... and brake to a
> stop, then slowly drop into the polar atmo and leave. You don't need
> to make orbit so long as you have contragrav or enough thrust to hover
> and break away.
>
> What's the flight profile in your TU for skimming ?
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Assuming the PCs aren't attempting high-order salvage by chasing a
stricken ship into a GG and subsequently EVAing to the casualty, skim
runs IMTU for what GT calls streamlined vessels (I think CT et al call
it "airframe") with CG varies from what you're proposing to relying on a
mix of aerodynamic and aerostatic lift (often above the 1 bar level),
while streamlined ships without contragrav prefer the conventional
throttles-wide-open-hang-on-to-your-hide-and-damn-the-SDBs approach.

Why yes, one group of PCs have had to deal with utility module failure
and subsequent vodka-martini stall during an "easy" skim run.  Why do
you ask?