Spacecraft are typically built in a skyscraper configuration
Even short range shuttles land vertically
Craft with wings and lifting bodies exist and may be common, depending on local tech—these have conventional "airplane" configuration
TODO How common are orbital docking facilities and shipyards
Short range fighters and AKVs are designed to withstand full thrust of fusion drives
These types of vehicles probably don't use reactionless thrusters because of expense and bulk of gravity plants
Space-bound vehicles (those that can only operate in space) are designed to handle 2G, but rarely accelerate faster than 1G without compensators
Shuttles and other vehicles designed to land can withstand up to 6G (or whatever modern rockets use). These also rely on fusion engines.
FTL drives
Alcubierre/white space drive
Gravity limit around stars
Base travel rate of 3 light-years/day
No weird hyperspace currents or anything
TODO How do you detect craft at warp? Can you merge warp bubbles? How maneuverable is a craft at wrap?
Maneuver drives
Overview
Superscience thrusters—convert energy into thrust with light and heat as byproducts
TODO How do craft handle this extra heat? Hyper-efficient radiators? Solar sail radiators? Some sort of heat storage? Or do we want to hand-wave this away? Maybe the heat and/or light come from the power plant or gravity plant?
Accelerate at 100G or more
Inertial compensators and artificial gravity based on same technology (also used in warp drives)
Reactionless drives
How it works: Tilts spacetime within its bubble, causing everything in the bubble to "fall"
Can't be used within a gravity well
I'm thinking roughly the limit of Luna's orbit about Earth, but will eventually have to work out details
Because it's freefall, there's no weight or stress on structures or anything—it's like being weightless in orbit, except you move in a straight line
Most species employ artificial gravity
Octopoids prevent low or zero gravity, because it's easier for them to move
Requires a fairly big "gravity plant" akin to a nuclear reactor on modern navy ships—smaller boats have more conventional power plants
Bubble and gravity differential probably provides some protection to front and rear, less on sides
Some variant of this tech is used to disperse the bow shockwave when unfolding a warp bubble
Reactionless drive imparts inertia
Reaction drives
High efficiency fusion engine akin to Epstein drive
Used for trans-atmo and cislunar travel—short-range shuttles, basically
Cold (compressed gas) thrusters are used for docking maneuvers
Artificial gravity and antigravity
No personal antigravity or antigrav vehicles
Gravity plant can provide artificial gravity when it is active (i.e. not inside significant gravity fields)
Gravity plating on each deck or floor
Plating has to be connected to the gravity plant with ducts, like an air vent is connected to the HVAC system
A gravity plant is a kind of particle accelerator, and the vortex that it creates to generate artifical gravity fields is disrupted or destabilized by strong external gravity fields
Like a small magnet being overpowered by a big one, or a small speaker and a great big PA system
Power and fuel
Total conversion power plants are available at TL10, but they are limited by the availability of antimatter
Antimatter reactors (that heat water by mixing small amounts of antimatter with large amounts of regular matter) are cheaper but similarly limited
Fusion reactors are exponentially more common and affordable—standard power plant for cities, colonies, and space vehicles
Older models heat water to steam and drive turbines
Magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) reactors are more efficient but require more advanced technology
Standard fuel is He2 or something similar that is plentiful (and renewable in space) but requires refining or purifying before use
Spacecraft normally carry extra fuel (like terrestrial boats and aircraft) and cannot refine more from raw ingredients
TODO Need to figure out how much fuel interstellar and conventional travel consumes, and how much fuel costs
Weapons and armor
Handheld energy weapons exist, but slugthrowers are much more common and easier to acquire
Armor is probably also easily available, thus limiting the lethality of firearms and potentially making them more common
Are there psionic abilities?
Hell yeah!
Dark matter exposure or something
Expresses randomly—pass on potential/likelihood to develop but not condition itself
What caused the Terran Mandate to fall?
Mandate failed for political reasons—Roman empire shit—too big
Mass interstellar trade became infeasible because too difficult to produce big enough engines without the government-industrial complex
What's the deal with artificial intelligence?
Assistant, non-volition AI exist
Fairly easy to create, run on commodity hardware
True AI difficult to create, not to run
Quantum core is expensive to create
Each is unique, requires a lot of work—can't be copied
Part of raising the AI is getting it to the point of self-awareness