khendar
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Posts: 1
Joined: Thu 18 May 2017, 05:24

Adapting to Southern Hemisphere

Thu 18 May 2017, 05:50

As I think many people are likely to do with this game, I was hoping to set my game in my hometown in rural Australia. Unfortunately according to the book, being in the Southern Hemisphere means that a core piece of technology present in the world, the magnetrine ships, don't work or are severely limited in ability. The explanation for why the ships don't work in the Southern Hemisphere is that the effect is weaker (or the force is reversed - depending on where in the book you look). What this effectively does is cut every country south of the equator (Australia, New Zealand, South America, South Africa, Indonesia) off from the rest of the world in terms of the technological, sociological and economic benefits of the magnetrine technology.

Whilst this in itself could form an interesting plot hook (societal changes caused by a sudden division between the "haves" in the North and the "have nots" in the South), I'd like to come up with a way of making the technology available in the South while still keeping it in canon.

Could it be a simple as reversing the spin in the neodymium rod ? Maybe the weaker effect requires exponentially more energy, so the ships have to have more powerful generators, making them more wasteful and polluting, or possibly unstable?

Has anybody else thought about adapting Loop to the Southern Hemisphere?
 
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Karbonara
Posts: 313
Joined: Fri 05 Jun 2015, 10:42

Re: Adapting to Southern Hemisphere

Thu 18 May 2017, 07:34

Perhaps the smaller magnetrine vehicles aren't possible, only the big gauss ships?

Or perhaps more disks in close vicinity make up for the lack of push from the magnetic fields, meaning a single gausship have a hard time getting off the ground, but if you make something like the truck "wagon trains" stringing multiple ships together they help keeping each other a float?

Also, perhaps they can't fly as high, so the magnetrine's lower effect makes for ships flying at the height of a four-storey building or so?

You can also toy with placed magnetic beacons that are a grid of platforms, each node placed every 500 miles or so, to essentially boost the magnetic field along the lines between the nodes. Each node also becomes a natural loading stop for the ships.
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Björn Hellqvist
Posts: 133
Joined: Wed 07 Dec 2016, 20:41
Location: Sweden

Re: Adapting to Southern Hemisphere

Sat 20 May 2017, 00:08

I think that it's more like lighter magnetrine ships can navigate the southern hemisphere, perhaps Magmid class but not heavier.There isn't much said about the southern hemisphere in the art books, so we had to.make up a lot. I would say that for scenario purposes, allow for all but the heavier magnetrine ships
My life fades. The vision dims. All that remains are memories. I remember a time of chaos, ruined dreams, this wasted land.
 
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Karbonara
Posts: 313
Joined: Fri 05 Jun 2015, 10:42

Re: Adapting to Southern Hemisphere

Sat 20 May 2017, 02:19

Mid-tier magnetrine freight trains?
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Rollspelens andra guldålder är här!

---------------------------------
Spelutvecklare, skribent, och Fria Ligan hang-around. (Det bara blev så.)

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