ag ships & systems_an introduction

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An Introduction

A visual guide to the ships and their systems in Ager Gensiustus.

By D. M. Zwerg


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Table of Contents

Introduction.....................................3

Propulsion Systems.........................3Gravity Drives.................................3

Ship Foil...........................................4

Gravity Plate.....................................4

Actuare Gravitus (Gravomag)..........5

Gravity Coil......................................5

Gravitic Accelerator.........................7

Comet Drive.....................................7

Lightning Arc Drive.........................8

Reaction Drives...............................9Creature: Aspidochelone..................9

Sails..............................................10Aether Sail: Chute..........................11

Weaponry.......................................12Hand Projectors..............................12

Ship Weaponry..............................13Aeols and Bow Weapons................13

Heavy Scorpion Ship Killer Aeol

.......................................................13Double Tian Light Anti-personnel

Aeol...............................................13

Serpentine.......................................13

Gravitas Throwers..........................13

Weapon Loads/Payloads................14Solid Shot.......................................14

Bolts...............................................14

Alchemical Loads..........................14Ball of Fire.................................14

Lightning Strike.........................14

Sticky Packs...............................14

Iotic Bombs....................................14

Other Systems................................15Life Support...................................15

Air Processing & Food...................15

Algae Vats......................................15

Air Candles.....................................15

Defenses........................................15

Shield Projectors............................15Phase Shields..................................16

Gravitas Throwers..........................16

Ablative Hull..................................16

Transport.......................................17Lading Craft...................................17

Landing Craft (Planetary)..............17

Transportation Stones.....................17

Miscellaneous...............................17Libraries.........................................17

Labs................................................17

Teleprobes (sensors).......................17

Communications............................18Internal..........................................18External.........................................18

Lading Capable..............................18

Docking Capable............................18

Planetary (Landing/Launching)

Capable...........................................18

Stealth.............................................18

Ships..............................................18Ship Size.........................................18

Ship Types......................................18

Miscellaneous details.....................18

D.M. Zwerg 2 May 4th, 2012


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PrefaceThis document was created as a visual

introduction to a concept I had of creating a

space game where magic rather than

futuristic technology is the ruling force. Icreated this as too many space fantasies

involve magic without a basic in logic or

alternate physics, something I tried to

accomplish here. The basics involve the

real world theory of Luminiferous Aether

combined with the idea of five elements

(Earth, Air, Fire, Water and Wood). I have

dubbed this fantasy space RPG the Ager

Gensiustus game and setting.

What this document examines is the

various ships, ship systems, propulsion

systems, and so forth, including graphical

representations. This document investigates

the various propulsion systems available,

including which element and schools of

magic are tied to each type. From there it

looks into weaponry and other ship systems

used by the various races & cultures that

make up the multiverse of Ager Gensiustus.

D.M.Zwerg, May 4th, 2012

This document are copyright May 2012 by

D.M.Zwerg, all rights reserved.

http://knightsandknaves.phpbbserver.com/

Propulsion SystemsList of propulsion systems and elemental

aspects:

Propulsion Element Magic

Ship Foil (shape drive) (?) (?)Gravity Plate Earth Rune

Gravomag Earth Rune

Gravity Coil Air Rune/Alchemy

Gravitic Accelerator Earth & Air Rune/Alchemy

Comet Drive Fire Alchemy/Spell

Lightning Arc Drive Air Rune/Spell

Recoil Drive varies (?)

Ice Ram Drive Water Rune/Spell

Creature Wood (?)

Aether Sail: Chute varies Alchemy

Aether Sail: Wing varies AlchemyAir Sail Air Alchemy/Spell

(?) - Indicates none as in can be accomplished

without magic as well as an inability to define any

particular set that primarily uses or makes this type,

Gravity Drives

Gravity drives manipulate the gravitic

affects of Luminiferous Aether to create

propulsion. This is generally done through

the attraction, repulsion, or redirection and

concentration of Gravitas particles. The

following is a list of Gravity Drives:

Ship Foil (shape drive)

Gravity PlateGravomag

Gravity Coil

Gravitic Accelerator

Comet Drive

Lightning Arc Drive

Ager Gensiustus 3 Ships & Systems
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Ship Foil

A Ship Foil Drive uses an alterable foil (or

wing, similar to sails in a radius around the

ship) to allow travel along currents in the

Aether. Note that unless two differentAether energies exist and are not moving in

the same direction at the same pace and the

ship itself and/or its foils are designed of

materials that affect one but not the other

the Foil Drive would be of limited use at it

would only allow traffic along and with the

current. A minimum of two Aether

mediums (usually aligned to different

elements) that affect different materials andnot moving in unison allow for differing

frictions to exist and thus the ship may be

able to maneuver and possibly even move

upstream against one of the currents,

much like a ship in water with the hull

interacting with the water and the sails

interacting with the air, thus allowing

controlled movement.

Gravity Plate

This drive uses a temporary or

permanent Gravity Plate to create a plane

of gravity in the ship. By putting the

Gravity Plate at the front of the ship moremass is pushing against one side of the plate

than the other and thus forward motion is

created. By using internal mass (often two

rollers perpendicular to each other) the

resultant mass offset allows for

maneuverability. It tends to be a slow and

somewhat clumsy design, but is something

that can be jury-rigged and is cheaper than

many other propulsion systems.



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Actuare Gravitus (Gravomag)

A Gravomag is a focused gravity engine

that is typically designed within a three axis

pivot. As they need to pivot on command

they are automata with some rudimentaryintelligence. Being Earth aspected they

typically prefer Dvergar handlers.

Gravity Coil

An older, more primitive system than a

Gravomag, Gravity Coils are the most

common drive for older Empire war ships as

well as most war ships used by the former

colonies, , and a number of other races &

cultures. Due to the gravitic diffraction (see

image) they are significantly less efficient

than Gravomags and tend to yield larger,

less maneuverable ships.

The gravity coils themselves are an

amalgam of two substances to cause the

movement of gravitic energy towards then

away from the coil, channeling it throughthe coil.

Advantage: Amount of power can be

varied.



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Disadvantages: Slower and less efficient.



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Gravitic Accelerator

Comet Drive

Utilized the principal that fire turns Aether

and thus heat rises to create a gravitic

imbalance to the flaming front and sides of a

typically spheroid ship or semi-cylindrical

ship. By altering the density of the flames

to the sides allows for turning.



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Lightning Arc Drive

Like a comet ship but using lighting to heat

and repel Aether. Unlike the comet s ships

with a Lightning Arc Drive tend to be more

disk shaped and typically vary some of thefrontal lightning arcs to slow and turn the

ship.



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Reaction Drives

Recoil Drive (particle projection)

Ice Ram Drive (particle projection)

Creature (swimming or rowing)

Creature: Aspidochelone



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Sails

Sail ships are generally Air Aspected (as

they catch wind) and generally involve the

use of Wind Bags or Fans to provide the

motive wind force, including those thattravel in space (either "leaking" wind via the

bag or "perpetual motion" with the fan or

Wind sword directing the winds, generally

on a turnable boom off the back). Wind

magics can get one into space and possibly

beyond but can greatly anger the captured

wind if it is taken from a planet without

permission and thus tend to be fairly slow as

only minor winds and breezes are wont totravel far from home and their base of

power. Portals to the Floating Island World

is also Air aspected but tends to lead to

slower, more danger-wrought travel than

traditional portals (see below).

A variant is the Fire aspected sails that

catch light and heat radiated from the sun orallow travel along a ley line (including earth

& wood variants). The disadvantages are

needing to carry multiple aspected sails and

multiple aspected mages to activate each

type as well as needing to stay rigidly to ley

lines and Aetheric Steering Ores needed to

steer.

Water ships do not typically leave thesurface of the water let alone the planet but

at Aubrey knots or very deep trenches there

tend to be portals to the Water World. Also,

Aetheric Corridors [may typically be water

aspected] and require use of Water Sails or

Aetheric sails to cross [depending on

direction of travel???].

The following is a list of different sail

drives:

Aether Sail (chute)

Aether Sail (wing)

Air Sail (chute)



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Aether Sail: Chute



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WeaponryList of propulsion systems and elemental

aspects:

Weapon Element Magic

Hand Projectors Rune/AlchemyIonizer Air Rune/Alchemy

Heater Fire Rune/Alchemy

Thumper Water Rune/Alchemy

Slug Thrower Earth Rune/Alchemy

Aeols & Projectiles

n/a none

Heavy Scorpion Ship Killer Aeol Rune

Double Tian Light Anti-personnel Aeol Rune

Other Ship Weapons

Pressure Gun Air Rune

Serpentine Fire? Rune/AlchemyGravitas Thrower Earth Rune

Payloads

Solid Shot n/a (?)

Bolts n/a (?)

Alchemical Loads

Ball of Fire Fire Alchemy

Lightning Strike Air Alchemy

Sticky Packs Wood Alchemy

Iotic Bombs

Air Air Rune

Earth Earth Rune

Fire Fire Rune

Water Water Rune

Wood Wood Rune




Hand Projectors

Ager Gensiustus has a number of Hand

Projectors. They use sympathetic magic to

amplify forces, but are typically limited in

power both due to size/space limitations (on

their "recharge caps" and so as not to

destroy the ships one tends to travel on:

Ionizers (Air aspect) - shoot out streams of

electricity/lightning for a limited range.

Heaters (Fire Aspect) - shoot out bursts of

heat (not quite flame, but scalding hot).

Thumper (Water Aspected) - a ball of water

shoots forth and tends to stun or known

down opponents.

Slug Throwers (Earth Aspected) - shoot out

balls of earth or metal like higher velocity

sling bullets.

Recharge caps are based on size & type of

Hand Projector.

Hand projectors tend to be fairly small to

minimize their weight (they involve a

decent amount of plummet in their

construction to minimize bleed). Extra caps

are carried in specially designed plummet

cases to minimize energy bleed evenbetween caps, thus most people carry few if

any spares.



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Ship Weaponry

Every ships weapon has a crew to operate

it. Part of the need for a specific crew is

training and knowledge of the weapon and

position in the ship, the other is that, in thecase of Aeols, the weapon may not be

willing to work for anyone they are not

comfortable with.

Aeols and Bow Weapons

(Wood Aspected or Mechanical)

Self-firing mechanicals are called Aeols,short for Aeolagostotrop. Aeols often

have the fastest reload rates, but that tends

to be inversely proportional to the mass of

the loads and the speeds to target and

depend on the gearing of the specific

Aeolagostotrop. On the other hand Aeols

are almost always turreted and thus can

adapt to different angles and circumstances

faster than any other type of weapon.

Manually firing bow weapons also exist,

but tend to be much slower firing and less

often turreted as the operators need to

manually crank them back and load them.

It is not uncommon for either weapon to

fire through one-way phase shields to allow

the weapon to operate under relative safety(and atmosphere) yet still fire projectiles at

specific direct-line targets.

One advantage of Aeols & bow weapons is

that once activated they often do not require

a Magistar to use them.

Heavy Scorpion Ship Killer AeolHeavy weapon generally mounted such

that it is at least partially open to the Aether

as it tend to fire Iotic Bombs and other large

payloads that could potentially overwhelm a

Phase Shield

Double Tian Light Anti-personnel Aeol

Typically installed under a one-way Phase-

Shield turret exterior to the ship these

weapons spew forth a preponderant weight

of fire from the four linked Aeols

crossbows. They generally have a 2-man

crew consisting of a gunner (who aims and

gives commands using foot pedals for

up/down left/right) and a bard/musician bin

reloader that sings to the Aeols.

Serpentine(Fire Aspect) shoots out a payload, but

requires component loads to fire (which

have to be loaded each time). Payloads tend

to have much greater initial velocities and

thus lower times to target than Gravitas

Throwers, but they usually suffer from

lower reload rates.

Some serpentines are designed to respondto commands and thus not require a

Magistar to operate them, although most

require one for initial activation and some

require a fire cantrap to activate each firing

(for security reasons).

Gravitas Throwers

(Earth Aspected) use gravity to propel a

mass at a target (any type of payload). As

the speed it limited by the gravitic constant

of the weapon (which is often a factor of

size and drain) as well as the distance the

gravity is projected through mileage will

vary and the load speed could be as little as

16ft/sec to ??? but the other ship often hastime to react. Gravitas Throwers can also be

used to deflect incoming payloads or

redirect payloads fired from other projectors

and thus have multiple uses. Fire rates are

based on however fast payloads are set into



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the projection field and released.

Gravitas Throwers generally require a

Magistar to activate and direct the device,

especially if in an Actuare Turret Mount

(which is directed by will rather than

command or pedals).

Weapon Loads/Payloads

Solid Shot

Stones or ceramic loads

Bolts

Alchemical Loads

Ball of Fire

Lightning Strike

Sticky Packsgenerally in a hollow ceramic load

Iotic Bombs

Iotic Bombs are basically very large

"amulets", "wands" or "enchanted gems"

programmed for a destructive use over a

large area. Once activated they, as thelargest such object in the area, draw all the

magical energy in an area and focus it into

creating an elemental effect in a "localized"

area. A Iotic Fire Bomb would create a

continuous ball of fire; Water, a large sphere

of water; Earth, a sphere of earth; Air, gale

force cyclonic winds in the area; Wood,

greatly increased plant growth.



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Other SystemsOther systems covers a wide variety of

things including Life Support, Defenses,

Lading Craft, Landing Capabilities, Launch

Capabilities, Libraries, Labs, Teleprobes(sensors), Communications, and so forth.

List of propulsion systems and elemental

aspects:

Propulsion Element MagicLife Support

Algae Vats Wood Alchemy

Air Candles Air/Fire Alchemy

DefensesShield Projectors Rune/P&C

Phase Shields Rune/P&C

Gravitas Throwers Earth Rune/Spell

Ablative Hull varies (?)

Transport

Lading Craft varies (?)

Landing Craft varies (?)

Transport Stones Earth Rune

Doors to Somewhere Wood Rune

Gateways varies Rune

CommunicationsInternal Air (?)

External Air varies

Miscellaneous

Libraries any varies / none

Labs any varies

Teleprobes varies varies

Lading Capable Air varies

Docking Capable Air (?)

Planetary varies varies

Stealth Air varies




Life Support

Air Processing & Food

Air requires 6 liters of algae-water / person

Chlorea less efficient @ 86sf surface water /

person

Rocketpunk estimates 0.75ton/person for

plants, etc (hydroponics for food)

Therefore 145-150 day break even between

food supply & hydroponic ecosystem.

Man consumes (per day)

0.84kg Oxygen

0.62kg food

3.52kg water

plus more water for hygiene)

and Yields (per day)

0.11kg solid waste

3.87kg liquid waste

1.00kg carbon dioxide

Algae Vats

Minimum 6 liters of algae-water perperson to replenish air; more if need to feed

fish (fish/shrimp/crab 10:1 ratio applies);

additional area for farming/food supply as

well as safer waste processing (swamp

plants).

Air CandlesAir Candles alchemical (fire/air

aspected) candles that produce oxygen as

they burn. Roughly 16 man-hours of good

air (oxygen) per candle.

Defenses

Shield Projectors

Like all other magical items used only in

times of active combat shield projectors are

kept in sealed plummet chests only to be



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opened during the conflict, then stowed

away once the ship is safe to conserve their

energies until such time as they can be

safely recharged. One projector is needed

for each shield and it consumes energy

when in use (see amulets) draining

unshielded weaker items in its area andgetting drained by more powerful items,

such as the Gravomag if it is in range, or

any active unshielded Iotic Bomb. Even a

relatively small ship will tend to have

dozens of hopefully fully charged shield

projectors on board at any given time.

Shields are of the power scale where they

resist full dice of damage rather than pointsof damage. >>

Phase Shields

Potential for blow to one come out of

another if they are close enough together

(within 50'); glow with blue light when

brought together, usually strong enough to

read by; 5 is alway safe; by 10 in same area

the blue light is blinding and there is a

chance for a rift (5% per above 5); when

critical mass is reached (random chance but

100% chance at 25) a rift is ripped in reality

and all matter within a 50' radius is blasted

out of phase into another plane/dimension,random location and height (potentially

underground, random chance)

Gravitas Throwers

>

Ablative Hull



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Transport

Lading Craft

Lading craft are any and all craft used tomove goods between one ship and another

or a ship and an orbital station. Typical

Lading Craft include Launches, Skiffs,

Small Foats, and sometimes even Ketches

and Cutters depending on the size of ship

and need for speed in lading. Small Foats

such as Grave Plate Foats are particularly

common at large Empire Resupply Depots

due to their speed and efficiency in movingheavy masses but Skiff, Launches and

Cutters are more common at Rotational

Stations due to their relative ease in

matching spin for docking. See individual

craft for details.

Landing Craft (Planetary)>

Transportation Stones

Small stone pads located in key areas of the

ship (usually in a Support Tube for security)

allow for individual transport. Larger cargo

pads (in Lading Tubes) are used for mass

transit of supplies; in either case attunedstones are carried to allow for remote

activation of Transport Pads.

Alternate are 1-way doors, shops of

somewhere else, or gateway portals.

Pads & Gateway Portals are often

deactivated when the ship is en route but

Doors generally don't have such precise

activation and thus are typically locked to

prevent unauthorized use.

Miscellaneous

Libraries

Space is boring and traveling in space is

faster and ultimately safer the morecompetent and efficient the crew is. This

goes for both more mundane skills as well

as for the magical abilities the typical

Magistar needs activate the devices. To this

end most races & cultures that use

Magistars in the military provide some

means for said to continue and refine their

training while traveling, because ultimately

the more powerful and highly skilled their

military Magistars the more powerful of

devices they can make when they retire to

civilian life. The means to this are

libraries in which to do research and labs in

which to experiment & practice. For this

reason most Line ships have large libraries

fully-stocked with all the latest treatises and

journals as well as both the newest andstandard texts for most (if not all) schools of

magic and often covering multiple

elemental aspects.

Labs

Teleprobes (sensors)



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Communications

Internal

External

Lading Capable

This indicates the ship is capable of

landing on/in a shipboard or station bay. It

generally indicates the ship has skids on atleast 1 side

Docking Capable

Planetary (Landing/Launching)Capable

This indicates the ship is capable of either

landing on a planet, launching from a

planet, or both. For example: most Skiffs

are Landing Capable, using the Sail as an

emergency chute in a gravity well, but

generally lack the ability to take off again

under its own power; most GraviticVehicles have limited if any landing

capabilities and only very few can take off

again once landed (requires >1G for many

planets limiting it to Couriers and actually

including Gravity Plate Foats (albeit landing

and reorientation is tricky at beast in

either)).

Stealth

Stealth indicates any of a variety of

methods used to make a ship less noticeable

in space. The most common is to pain the

ship black and have no exposed light or

active gravitics if possible, or if possessing

gravitics at least remaining motionless.

Other methods include actual active

invisibility and so forth.

Ships

Ship Size

Need 10m^3 per person to 20m^3 includingwork space (galley, etc)

plus air & food processing areas, etc

Roughly 1-2 tones per person

+ 1-2 tons fittings & equipment

thus each person = 3-5 tons

20m^3 ~ 100sf w. 7' ceiling

therefore 10m^3 ~ 50sf w. 7' ceiling

Ship Types

Ice Ship Water

Stone Ship Earth

Metal Ship usually Fire (or Earth)Crystal Ship usually Earth

Ceramic Ship usually Fire

Coral or Shell/Bone Ship Wood or Water

(as some can be alchemically grown via

Wood magic)

Plant Ship Wood

Creature Chariot usually Wood

Creature Symbiosis usually Wood

Miscellaneous details

Sealed Hulls - Although pressure from

luminiferous aether tends to maintain an



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air bubble around any object of significant

mass due to gravity due to shielding this

does not happen to the same degree when

under way and gravitic engines would push

all atmosphere away thus hulls tend to be

sealed. In gravitic ships sealing prevents air

loss & creates good air/water flow; alsodefense, hide (by preventing light

pollution), and even physical loss of cargo,

people, etc.

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