I was thinking about making a Zeppelin. At first I was thinking about how to get the helium, but now I am wondering if I can do better is there any lighter than vacuum substance in pathfinder.
On that same note what do you think is most affordable way to keep something in the air by pounds/Gp ratios. Immovable rods are 1.6. Can you think of better ways?
Well, immovable rods could certainly keep your zeppelin in the air, but you'd need a huge amount of propulsion to make it move anywhere (because of the DC 30 str check for a single immovable rod).
You could just buy an Airship and refluff it.
Payload is 30 tons (or 60,000 pounds) for a 50,000gp ship, so that's at least a ratio of 1.2 (it's actually better because it carries the weight of the ship itself in addition to the 30 tons payload).
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"Lighter than vacuum?"
Not even magic can make matter have less mass than no mass.
Take an iron plate.
Cast levitate on it.
Cast permanency on it.
Do that nine hundred and ninety-nine more times.
Make a zeppelin 'airbag' out of the one thousand iron plates.
The funny thing of this is that your airbag is one thousand iron plates. Arrows will not pierce your airbag. Nor will ballista bolts. Nor will fireballs.
Admittedly expensive in terms of having to cast permanency one thousand times, but hey, it's unique.
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"Lighter than vacuum?"
Not even magic can make matter have less mass than no mass.
+1
Vacuum cannot be "light" as it lacks ANY mass. Meaning it has no weight whatsoever!
If you meant a lighter-then'"AIR" substance, then you have gases like Helium and Hydrogen to play around with.
For the sake of easy gaming, you can always just make a Zeppelin by explaining that it is filled with a 1) explosive or 2) non-explosive, lighter-then-air gas.
After all the most important thing is to know if the air-bladder will go "boom!" if you throw a fireball at it.
I was sort of hoping that pathfinder with it's many weird and wonderful things would have a substance with negative weight.
For awhile I was thinking of filling it with bound air elementals, but that would make the hindenburg look like a minor setback when someone managed to tear it.
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Gnome engineer proposal No. LTVS-001
So you want something that's lighter than a vacuum. That'd be something that not only has no weight, but has negative weight.
Well, the boys and I have been thinking about it, see? Basically you need something that's rejected by gravity.
Now, I've got a second uncle on my mother's side, used to work for the spellcasters by the seashore. He claims he can craft a Reverse Gravity field generator under a ship, but all his tests subjects got shot out of the planet before it could be properly tested by the XI Committee of... Nevermind the details. He claims it works.
So that's our take on it, fly around making the ground under you repel you. By the way, this design also works wonder for clearing debris after natural disasters, battlefield sanitation, pest control and children parties.
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Magic is precisely the thing that can make something have negative mass.
Besides, as far as we know from our study of particle physics and quantum mechanics, "empty space" is far from empty and the latest calculations of the energy value of empty space (and therefore mass) is quite extraordinary. So even in the "real world" we live in, according to accepted theories, a truly empty area of space would be "lighter than nothing." We just don't know of any way to clear the space out of... space.
From the Pathfinder SRD, flasks of alchemist fire and acid weigh a pound while an empty flask weighs 1.5lbs. This may be an oversight or they are using different flasks.
From the Pathfinder SRD, flasks of alchemist fire and acid weigh a pound while an empty flask weighs 1.5lbs. This may be an oversight or they are using different flasks.
But see above about the hindenburg.
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This is one spot where the vehicle rules fall short; the entry for the airship gives examples of fuel sources/ buoyancy substances, but zero details on how those function. There was a 3rd party book Airships that I used for the airship rules in my home game. I modified them to work with the PF versions of vehicles to some small success.
The Seafarer's Handbook also has some good rules on vehicles.
Not sure where I put them, but I know they both have good rules for fleshing out vehicles and vehicle construction that Paizo hasn't looked into. Maybe the page count monster is to blame, but I'd love to see one of their mini-supplements devoted to pimping out and customizing vehicles. Heck, a blog post would be a great start.
All this talk about spells and gas an such to make something fly is all great, but you are all missing the easiest way of making an airship fly.
Throw it at the ground and miss.
That's really hard, the ground has an AC of like, -100.
not if you roll a 1
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I can see it now...
Witch Hex Airlines. Either you fly or we send the condolences to your family.
I think I shall stick with Elbonian Airways.
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From the Pathfinder SRD, flasks of alchemist fire and acid weigh a pound while an empty flask weighs 1.5lbs. This may be an oversight or they are using different flasks.
I believe this is because it's probably a drinking flask rather than a small vial of said substances. It could probably be a misuse of the word flask for those items.
Hot air (lots of it) should suffice to achieve your airship/zeppelin. Since it's density is lower than cold air it should float your zeppelin at some point. Propulsion would be another matter.
The Palladium setting had an interesting concept of building waterbound ships with a stone hull. It was huge ordeal involving all kinds of spellcasters and binding earth elementals, forcing them to take the shape needed for the hull and then "freezing" them to keep the hull intact.
Maybe you could go for a similar concept.
Ruyan.
Reverse Gravity + Everything
Lighter airship means that gravity applies more pull to the sorounding air, squeezing up the baloon. If you are out in the exotics of doing stuff that is lighter that Helium, you might as well drop the baloon. Baloons are 18th century and forth, filling a baloon with particles with negative mass is sci fi, and probably harder than antigrav or just regular flight :-).
Well, immovable rods could certainly keep your zeppelin in the air, but you'd need a huge amount of propulsion to make it move anywhere (because of the DC 30 str check for a single immovable rod).You can have "rowers" ... you connect the rods to the ship through some sort of pivots, deactivate half and "pull" on the other half (actually you're pushing the ship of course) and then activate the other half and deactivate them etc.
That would make the ratio 8000/10000 or .8
I remember reading a fantasy novel, IIRC Empire of the East, where the hero was trying to create a lighter than aircraft with the help of a demon. After the metal balloon collapsed because of the vacuum, the demon explained that for the metal to be strong enough to vacuum, it would weigh to much to fly. I don't remember the solution although it may have involved Maxwell's Demon.
There was a dragon magazine that had a substance that when burned released a lighter than air gas. This made for mines of the stuff and made it a limited resource. Or look up cavorite.
Now I have the image of an inchworm-style vehicle with immovable rods... The back locks in, the front extends, the front locks in and the back releases, and it contracts, and then the back locks in before the front extends, and repeat.
Now I have the image of an inchworm-style vehicle with immovable rods... The back locks in, the front extends, the front locks in and the back releases, and it contracts, and then the back locks in before the front extends, and repeat.
I have to admit to really liking this idea. It mean that you can build a small flying castle then keep adding on to it as you get more immovable rods also it is on fairly solid ground and therefor fairy safe from attack.
Next question what substance would you build this flying forrest from? Something strong enough to resist attack and build out of but light enough to not need too many rods and hopefully not too expensive.
I was thinking of making a flying capital city for a kingdom.
Do you know the Shory?
Ruyan.
I do now, but that does not give any guides for how to build a flying city.
An Airship in PFRPG is a Zeppelin...
An Airship in PFRPG is a Zeppelin...
No it's not. The one in Ultimate Combat is clearly semi-rigid at best. Zeppelins are rigid airships.
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Now I have the image of an inchworm-style vehicle with immovable rods... The back locks in, the front extends, the front locks in and the back releases, and it contracts, and then the back locks in before the front extends, and repeat.I have to admit to really liking this idea. It mean that you can build a small flying castle then keep adding on to it as you get more immovable rods also it is on fairly solid ground and therefor fairy safe from attack.
Next question what substance would you build this flying forrest from? Something strong enough to resist attack and build out of but light enough to not need too many rods and hopefully not too expensive.
I was thinking of making a flying capital city for a kingdom.
why do a pull/push with the rods, they have a button on them to activate/deactivate. mount 4 of them on a short conveyor belt that trips them on and off in a short line. You just need to power the conveyor and however fast it goes the machine goes....not really sure how you would work turning unless the conveyor was on a pivoting point of some sort that could be manuevered into up/down and banks for turning.
An Airship in PFRPG is a Zeppelin...No it's not. The one in Ultimate Combat is clearly semi-rigid at best. Zeppelins are rigid airships.
The onoy difference between a Airship/Blimp and a Zeppelin is that a Zeppelin uses stronger Materials and is usually specially treated.
Originally Airship frames were Wood and Treated Canvas. Zeppelins were Metal Tubing and Leather.
Basically make the "Sail" or "Bag" out of Magically Treated Materials and there you go.
After doing a bit of research it would seems that Carbon-fiber-reinforced polymer is the best material to use.
Now the question is can you make that from graphite using fabricate and if you can what is the craft DC and which craft skill?
An Airship in PFRPG is a Zeppelin...No it's not. The one in Ultimate Combat is clearly semi-rigid at best. Zeppelins are rigid airships.The onoy difference between a Airship/Blimp and a Zeppelin is that a Zeppelin uses stronger Materials and is usually specially treated.
Originally Airship frames were Wood and Treated Canvas. Zeppelins were Metal Tubing and Leather.
Basically make the "Sail" or "Bag" out of Magically Treated Materials and there you go.
Well, no. A blimp is a gas bag with a gondola for passengers / cargo. The shape of a blimp is courtesy of the bag itself. A Zeppelin (from the German airship company of Count von Zeppelin) / dirigible airship is a rigid frame (covered with fabric in the old days) with gas bags inside the framework. There were working spaces inside the frame as well as gondolas underneath it. They are currently building a cargo dirigible in the desert north of LA. Funded by DARPA, uses helium for lift and air for ballast, the frame is carbon fiber and aluminum. I'm kind of excited about the possibilities for civilian use as well...
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Well, no. A blimp is a gas bag with a gondola for passengers / cargo. The shape of a blimp is courtesy of the bag itself. A Zeppelin (from the German airship company of Count von Zeppelin) / dirigible airship is a rigid frame (covered with fabric in the old days) with gas bags inside the framework. There were working spaces inside the frame as well as gondolas underneath it. They are currently building a cargo dirigible in the desert north of LA. Funded by DARPA, uses helium for lift and air for ballast, the frame is carbon fiber and aluminum. I'm kind of excited about the possibilities for civilian use as well...An Airship in PFRPG is a Zeppelin...No it's not. The one in Ultimate Combat is clearly semi-rigid at best. Zeppelins are rigid airships.The onoy difference between a Airship/Blimp and a Zeppelin is that a Zeppelin uses stronger Materials and is usually specially treated.
Originally Airship frames were Wood and Treated Canvas. Zeppelins were Metal Tubing and Leather.
Basically make the "Sail" or "Bag" out of Magically Treated Materials and there you go.
I saw that article, it is supposedly gonna be able to handle transport of somewhere between 60 and 70 tons of equipmment with a verticle takeoff and the ability to hover in place when offloading....looking at uses like getting supplies to areas with no infrastructure like roads, landing fields etc, that are hit with disasters. Really cool looking.
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"Lighter than vacuum?"
Not even magic can make matter have less mass than no mass.And every gnome engineer in the world says:
"Challenge accepted."
Unlike certain other crackpots who think that if you just reverse the flow of gravity, somehow that "negates mass" (I'm looking you you, College of Applied Dynamics), we at the College of Metamagical Physics believe that you cannot observe a 'negative mass' directly, but instead can infer if an objects holds negative mass by it's effects upon mass when directly applied to it. In the case of a balloon with lighter than 'air' (Gods... do we have to really dumb it down so much for the peasants?) particles in it, this manifests by the mass of the 'overall' changing as additional 'known' mass is applied to it, eventually giving an equilibrium point where the 'negative' mass and the 'positive' mass equal each other and form a zero overall mass.
On the basis of that theory, our esteemed colleagues have determined that the use of a Sphere of Annihilation is what you want.
No matter how much matter is applied to it it refuses to alter in it's own mass or behaviour, seeming to be quite happy to absorb a significant quantity of mass with no observable change in it's behaviour or it's own mass. Currently we are conducting futher experiments to determine if the type of mass is a factor, and have begun experimenting with basic organic / in-organic matter. If anyone has a local village that they are willing to donate to the cause, that would be most welcome as there have been the occasional issue observed with re-using the matter once it's come in contact with the sphere. We also have the College of Astro-Etheric Engagement trying to determine which planet would be least hazardous to bond with one to disprove some nay-sayers objection that "We just haven't added enough mass".
Well, no. A blimp is a gas bag with a gondola for passengers / cargo. The shape of a blimp is courtesy of the bag itself. A Zeppelin (from the German airship company of Count von Zeppelin) / dirigible airship is a rigid frame (covered with fabric in the old days) with gas bags inside the framework. There were working spaces inside the frame as well as gondolas underneath it. They are currently building a cargo dirigible in the desert north of LA. Funded by DARPA, uses helium for lift and air for ballast, the frame is carbon fiber and aluminum. I'm kind of excited about the possibilities for civilian use as well...
Depends on whether the Blimp was made for Long or Short Distance Flight.
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I remember reading a fantasy novel, IIRC Empire of the East, where the hero was trying to create a lighter than aircraft with the help of a demon. After the metal balloon collapsed because of the vacuum, the demon explained that for the metal to be strong enough to vacuum, it would weigh to much to fly. I don't remember the solution although it may have involved Maxwell's Demon.
But you can make a lead balloon fly.
