Artificial Gravity in SE4

[Ed Kolis]

The Gravitic Technology field is kind of neglected, given that it only provides scanners that you can acquire cheaper in Advanced Military Science. How about these enhancements (actually restrictions on other techs, but who cares? ) to make it more useful:

-Don't assume that you get free, built-in gravity generators from the start of the game. This means -20 (or some such value) to the attack and defense rating of all ship, base, and fighter hulls, since crews cannot function as well without gravity. When you research Gravitic Technology, you get Artificial Gravity Generators that negate that effect with a +20 to attack and defense. The earlier Versions of such generators would be expensive and bulky, but they would still give a significant combat advantage over ships without artificial gravity. The later Versions would be smaller and cheaper, and could be installed in a practical manner on any ship, not just the big important ones. Of course, if both sides have no gravity generators, they're no worse off than if they both did, but when one side has gravity generators and the other doesn't, the side without them is in trouble! (Just like with combat sensors and ECM. ) Of course, the Master Computer component would also negate the penalties built into the hulls, given that computers don't need gravity to function properly

-Sphereworlds... it's been mentioned that a rotating sphereworld will only have a narrow band with gravity. Therefore, a sphereworld will have no more population capacity than a ringworld. It will have more facility and cargo space, though; automated facilities can be operated and cargo can be stored even where there is no population. If you want to really fill that sphereworld up, you'll need to build a special kind of sphereworld, one that uses Planetary Gravity Plating, which will now only be available with a crossover between Stellar Manipulation and Gravitic Technology. (Normal sphereworlds and ringworlds would just use Planetary Structural Plating, which is the same thing but without the gravity generators.)