Re: How does rigging work, anyway?

There are a number of reasons I want to know how the rigging of ships
work.  For one thing, where is the crew likely to be in battle?  Are they
going to be on deck, exposed to Jettisons, shot, light ballistae etc...?
During boarding actions will they be able to quickly join the fight, will
they be scattered throughout the ship or concentrated on deck?

With some ships there is clearly less need for rigging:
The Rudder of Propulsion reminds me of an outboard motor, you turn the boat
with a lever attached to the engine.  Turning the ship left/right, up/down
would be fairly straightforward.  Perhaps by twisting the lever you could
roll the ship.

Ships like the Beholder Tyrant ships don't appear to have any rigging but
could be ruled to steer by using the interaction of the Orbi.  I would
rule that a Tyrant ship powered by something other than Orbi would _not_
have MC C, and that you couldn't improve its maneuverability class by
adding rigging either.

Some ships could be flown by wire, with wing tip flaps controlled by the
helmsmen, and force on the flaps cause the wing to move in the desired
direction.  This could explain ships like the Viper.  Something to think
about is that cheap steel wire _not_ going to available in most fantasy
universes.  You can have breach-loading artillery before cheap steel wire.
If you are using something less durable that steel wire it won't take
much battle damage to reduce your mobility.


I feel uncomfortable with simply dismissing the logic of current rigging
as 'the crew is performing a ritual' precisely because it allows ships
like the Viper with no explanation.  If something is going to have a
particular edge, I want to know what it costs, what side effects and
limitations there might be, and whether it can be adapted to other ships.

I also don't like the idea of sails catching the a force from the stern,
presumably generated by the Helm.  It means that the rigging for Wildspace
is completely opposite from the rigging used in an atmosphere!  Consider,
sails in Wildspace are depicted as perpendicular to the direction of travel.
At 17 mph/ SR point, a ship travelling at SR 6, (102 mph) is going to
rip its masts out very quickly!

By having the headwind continue into Wildspace the only vigorous handwaving
you need to do will be to explain why the air doesn't escape.  But that
is only a problem from our perspective, characters in a Spelljammer Universe
will have no reason to expect something different.  The air will stay in
the envelope because that is its Aristotlean nature.  Things fall in a
gravity well because that is the nature of the object.

To avoid having all the deck crews blown away at high SR, the apparent head
wind may be only 17 mph x SR ^ .5  or whatever formula the GM thinks will
work.  Instead of the orbiting apple trick working because of binary
gravity, it may work because of the continually circulating winds.

Michael Sandy