Passive Drives

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NoXion
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Passive Drives

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Passive Drives

Mostly plain sailing


Solar Sails

The Solar Sail uses the feather-light pressure of the solar wind to produce thrust. Drawbacks include a dramatic drop-off of power the further it gets from a star (although this problem is attenuated around high-mass stars which tend to have very strong solar winds) and the very delicate nature of the SolaR Sail itself, ruling out it's use in any combat applications. With that, the Solar Sail is most often used on pleasure craft and interplanetary cruise liners.


Microwave Sail

A beam of microwaves is focused from an orbital station onto the ultra-fine mesh sail of a spacecraft, giving thrust of up to 0.10C to the ship. A series of microwave stations formed an early interstellar network, to be superceded by the Laser Sail Network and then the Particle Beamrider Network (PBRN).


Laser Sail

A super-powerful laser is aimed at an super-reflective sail mounted on a ship, enabling an average speed of 0.20C. As with all passive drives relying on a beaming station, the course of the ship is fixed, although this is ameliorated by not having to lug around massive amounts of reaction mass.


Magsail

The Magsail emits a standing magnetic field which deflects charged particles emitted by a star, producing thrust. The magsail can also thrust against the magnetosphere of a star or planet, thereby giving it another edge over the solar sail in addition to it's increased thrust. The Magsail can also be used for STL interstellar travel - firing a beam of charged particles at the magsail can accelerate the ship to relativistic speeds, while outside the heliopause the magsail can be used as a break in order to slow down the ship on approach to a star system. The Magsail usually takes the form of a superconducting ring connected to the ship by wires, but their exists a "deployable" version made of superconducting wire which can be spooled out to form a loop when needed.


Particle Beamrider

A beam of particles is fired at the absorbtion array at the rear of the ship. The kinetic energy of the particles is transferred to the ship, and the particles themselves are consumed to produce thrust. This is the most powerful of the beamed-thrust drives at 0.60C, and the Particle Beamrider Network set up in the latter half of the Sublight Era is still used today for non-priority cargo and passengers in nanostasis.


Hypersails

Hypersails are a special kind of drive that take advantage of the unique conditions of Hyperspace. The primary component of this drive are the sails themselves, which resemble the superconducting lattices used in Hyperspace Grids. These are designed to catch the flows and eddies of electromagnetic and particulate energy that constantly sweep through Hyperspace. Due to the high energies involved in typical Hyperspace "winds" and the ever-present possibility of energy storms, Hypersails have to be very strongly constructed. But this is more than made up for the fact that Hypersailing is a very quick way of getting around Hyperspace.
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