Fria Ligans forum

In the text these mapping devices are described as having “limited antigravity” which is just pure fantasy and has no basis in physics. These are the only items in the game I’ve seen that use antigravity, everything else is nice hard science(except the FTL drive, but c’mon).

Might I suggest they instead employ “magnetic levitation” utilising room temperature superconducting materials, this would create the same fancy effects without resorting to what is basically magic. Magnetic levitation is basic science, and the only reasons we don’t have technology like this today is really just engineering and a big material science breakthrough in superconducting.

There would be certain limitations to the technology, like they would only work on planets with a magnetosphere, but that’s up to the GM. Plus this would allow the GM to say, your mapping pups don’t work on this moon because the magnetosphere isn’t strong enough. Some problems you just can’t buy your way out of.

I'm not sure I'll include Pups in my own games, since I found a lot of Prometheus tech cool, but not terribly "Alien" in feel, but there's at least one other case where gravity is being cheated. Ships have artificial gravity, so it's not a huge stretch to have them also able to manipulate physics to fly drones. They may just be really expensive, or the tech just doesn't work terribly well for items larger than a drone but smaller than a ship.

Yeah, you’re correct, I didn’t even think about the gravity decks... probably because they weren’t mentioned and just left in the background.

I guess I have to admit that I have two biases that come into play here.

1. My brain sees “antigravity” and squirms, and I get worked up about hack writing that lacks a pedestrian understanding of physics.

2. I admittedly HATE Prometheus and even the acknowledgement of it kinda irritates me. I genuinely wish they’d just stopped making films after Aliens.

I hear you! I tend to stick to Alien, Aliens, Isolation, and maybe now the audio adaptation of Gibson's script.  Everything else I tend to ignore, other than tiny bits and pieces. 

Back on topic, the only reason it ever occurred to me is that there's one line when the Nostromo is lifting off where they mention that they're engaging it. I'd missed it for decades, though, only catching it on a re watch a few years back. So many little things to still pick up from that movie!

In the text these mapping devices are described as having “limited antigravity” which is just pure fantasy and has no basis in physics.  These are the only items in the game I’ve seen that use antigravity, everything else is nice hard science(except the FTL drive, but c’mon).  

That the deck-axis runs nose to tail, rather than side to side, requires artificial gravity generation tech.

That orientation was evident even in the first movie. 

Likewise, we don't see the dropship pilots feeling the 3-5 G turns we see them make in Aliens, either. 

Artificial gravity and inertial compensation are a standard of visual sci-fi, because it makes shooting easier.  And if you have two-of-the-three, the third (antigravity lift) is usually thrown in to make things look futuristic.

The Aliens Tech Manual, page 120, also states "Artificial gravity, a necessity for the health and operational during prolonged spaceflight, is produced by a bank of synchronized gravity field generators situated throughout the habited length of the spaceframe."

Gravitics are NOT added by Free League, but have been part of the setting since initial shooting.