Pitch Field Drive
 |
| Pitch drive - Data Panel
Basic Propulsion: Reactionless Specific Impulse: n/a Reaction Mass: n/a Minimum Technology Required: Picotech, with some femtotech elements, and incorporation of planktech negative matter Matter Manipulation: Space-Time Controller required: while drive operation requires only subordinate non-sentient routines, a dedicated ai is necessary to maintain ring equilibrium and stability during hyperfast rotation First Introduced: Age of Expansion by third singularity ai Used by: sephirotic empires and affiliates and equivalent, archailect backed polities. Used in: relativistic warships, ultratech fighters, relativistic commercial liners, relativistic traders and freighters (rare), mobile ISOs, autowars and biowars Advantages: no need for reaction mass, simplicity (relative to Bias drive), extremely high acceleration Disadvantages: Tidal forces when drive in operation Construction Costs: Expensive (precision picotech elements, ultradense matter, dedicated hyperturing controller) Running cost: most costs involve replacing the eroded shielding, which can be expensive. Otherwise running costs are reasonable Normal Acceleration: 50G, maximum 100G to 400G normal top/crusing speed relativistic; limited only by shielding efficiency |
In its basic design, perhaps only the Diametric Drive exceeds the Pitch Drive in simplicity. The Pitch Drive consists of a large torus of woven buckministerfullerene fiber with multiple rings of liquid, ultradense matter magnetically suspended parallel to the x-axis within it. Neutronium accelerator sheaths, designed to extract energy from the vacuum via the Sanderberg Acceleration Effect, surround each UD matter ring.
Using the Sandberg Effect, the neutronium accelerators extract energy from the vacuum and use it to circulate the UD matter within them at an ever-increasing rate of speed. Finally, the rings are circulating so rapidly that, due to a combination of their own inherent mass and relativistic mass increase, they induce a state of drag on the space- time coordinate frame within the center of the drive ring. A vessel suspended within the center of the ring will experience gravitic acceleration through the ring and away into space. However, since the vessel is attached to the drive ring by picotech reinforced diamondoid bracing, it carries the drive ring along with it. The drive ring in turn continues to accelerate the ship, which continues to pull the ring and so on. Since the propulsive force provided by the Pitch Drive involves the movement of space-time itself rather than more conventional Newtonian action/reaction forces, those onboard do not experience inertial acceleration. However, the small size of the drive ring and the huge forces required to induce the drive effect, create intense tidal stretching around the drive when it is in operation. For this reason, Pitch Drives are mostly employed by aioid or upload crewed vessels or by automated long range/high speed probes.
