The Vehicle Construction System: Level based

[BlackJaw]

I think we are mostly on the same page here (which is a good thing)!

Good questions. Here are my initial thoughts on the topic. I can think of three basic possibilities:

1) The vessel automatically overrides the pilot. (Not much fun for the pilot, especially if you've got an Evil GM.)
2) The pilot automatically overrides the vessel. (Maybe the best solution if you're talking about a computer AI or other intelligent construct, but it doesn't seem realistic in other cases.)
3) The pilot must succeed at a contested Will save to override the vessel. (I don't like this one much myself, but it is an option.)
4) The pilot must meet certain conditions in order to pilot the vessel at all, but if he does his control is absolute. In the case of undead or construct vessels, you might say that only the vessel's "creator" can control it, or that you need a special magic item (like a rod of dragon control). You could use the latter option with aberrations too. Perhaps there's a device that allows the pilot to "become one" with a living vessel. (This is the best option IMO because it allows so many different possibilities.)

I like option 4 best. How about a test of wills to get the vehicle to acknowledge you as a pilot, at which point you have full control? Testing wills can only be done if you are in the pilot controls (which would be varied depending on type... at least in description... an odd tangle of roots or pod for a plant ship, a womb or mental tapping tenticle in an organic/aberation ship, a throne of bones in an undead ship...etc. The undead option is interesting because you could also by pass the battle of wills by using Rebuking/command checks or Control Undead-type spells.
PS: I am the EVIL DM of my group.

(about Life support being not direclty tied to vehicle size) Good point. So, any thoughts about how this could be reflected in the rules?

Easy: the more levels of engines you have (this is also true of the special components like derigibles and sails) the higher a crew ratting you have. For every crewman you don't have, the pilot takes a -1 penalty on all checks (generaly making it hard to even take off in drastic cases). These crewmen spend most of their time doing very NPC like things (profession skill NPC commoners in most cases) making them useful for leadership followers or paid sailors/etc but not a very PC-esc role. For every (say 5) engine levels you need an extra crewman beyond the pilot. Thus vehicles would quickly need lots of crew. One of the special components/level options would be Automated systems which simply reduce you number needed crewmen but might use up power etc. Thus advanced crafts might be almost all automated allowing only the NPCs to operate them. the number of extra people on board would also increase if you need extra gunners (catapults and ballistas generaly need crews of 3 or more... same with cannons, although more modern weapons or magic wepaons wouldn't) A good sized warship can have a large lifesupport draw very quickly.

What I meant was that the number of "movement points" you get for one level in the Engines "class" could be determined by the baseline tech level. At its simplest, you could just say that you get (TL+1) movement points per level of Engines. (The "+1" is because the scale starts at TL 0: Stone Age.) The base cost of one level of Engines is a constant regardless of Tech Level, but you could upgrade your engines to a higher TL by paying more, or get a discount by downgrading them to a lower TL.

Using this system, you can then calculate a vehicle's speed without needing a table. First, add up the number of movement points allocated to forward motion ("speed points" hereafter). For each multiple of the vehicle's total hit dice, it moves 1 square (30 ft). Therefore, a 40-HD ship with up to 40 speed points would have a maximum speed of 30 ft; with 41-80 speed points, its speed would be 60 ft, and so on.

For maneuverability points, each multiple of the vehicle's hit dice above the first improves its manueverability by one class. So a 40-HD ship would have clumsy manueverability with 40 or fewer mp's; poor maneuverability with 41-80 mp's, etc..

On reflection, I don't think there's any need to bother with "lift points" and minumum speed. It may be more realisitic, but it's not any more fun. Just say that a vehicle must have Good or better manueverability or a dirigible in order to hover. (As a side note, I think a dirigible should double the vessel's effective hit dice for the purpose of determining maneuverability.)

Incidentally, a side effect of these rules is that you could never exceed the minumum speed of 30 ft using Stone Age engines. To go faster, you'd need magic (which would use a different formula to calculate speed points) or sails (which I'm presuming are treated as a separate type of component from engines).

I kind of like that. It might need some tweaking once we test build some crafts, but I do like simply chopping out the overly complicated lift, powered etc... I think your on the right track with this.

The same type of rule could be applied to fuel and power as well (you might want to consider making these separate "classes"). For every level of Fuel you add, you gain (TL+1) units of fuel. The total fuel divided by the hit dice gives the vehicle's range in, say, hundreds of miles. As with engines, you could pay more to get high-grade fuel with an increased TL.

Using Fuel to determine range is interesting, as its a dynamic that doesn't come into play with combat (using fuel in combat is too complicated and not all that fun) but would make for an easy way to limit range by DMs etc. You can't travel some place you don't have the range to reach, and major traffic lanes are determine by stops for fuel. Not bad.

Power would work on the same principle; the higher the TL, the more units of power you get per level. In this case, the size of the vessel doesn't matter; the power needs are determined by adding up the power consumption of individual components. (You could also have special components that allow you to convert fuel to power or vice versa.)

Now we are getting into a hazy area. One of the major ideas I had for handling power was that one of it most important uses is powering weapons an special systems (like sheilds). Doing so means using up charges. The vehicle's power system generates X charges/round (top of the inative order or on the pilot's turn: it's full) and every time a gunner fires a gun or an engineer reinforces sheilds etc. it lowers the number of charges for that round. This is at least the combat oriented use of power I was thinking of (this system has no bearings outside combat). I sort of figured that this covered the extra discretionary power a vehicle has over the top of basic system uses which are always on and thus not really needed for calculations. I also sort of figured that power and fuel should be a similar mechanical (game wise) systems... although having talked to you I'm starting to see that as not a needed connection.

 

[Wyvern]

Now we are getting into a hazy area. One of the major ideas I had for handling power was that one of it most important uses is powering weapons an special systems (like sheilds). Doing so means using up charges. The vehicle's power system generates X charges/round (top of the inative order or on the pilot's turn: it's full) and every time a gunner fires a gun or an engineer reinforces sheilds etc. it lowers the number of charges for that round. This is at least the combat oriented use of power I was thinking of (this system has no bearings outside combat). I sort of figured that this covered the extra discretionary power a vehicle has over the top of basic system uses which are always on and thus not really needed for calculations. I also sort of figured that power and fuel should be a similar mechanical (game wise) systems... although having talked to you I'm starting to see that as not a needed connection.

The idea I had regarding power (which I think is how it was done before, though I haven't checked) is that certain components require a certain fixed number of "power points" to operate. The total power consumption of all components in use at one time must be equal to or less than the total number of power points available.

A generator would convert fuel points to power points (the higher the tech level, the better the conversion ratio), thus increasing the amount of power available but reducing the effective range of the vessel. A generator's opposite number would be a component that converts power points either into fuel points. You could vary the amount of fuel or power converted on a per-trip basis, but you couldn't turn these components on or off in the middle of a trip in order to boost your range or power output. I know that's not realistic, but I think it's the only way to avoid headache-inducing calculations in the middle of combat. On the other hand, you could have a component that converted power directly to movement points (a "booster engine"), which could be used at will to increase your speed provided you had sufficient unused power reserves.

Changing the subject, I thought of an amendment yesterday to my proposal regarding the formula for calculating speed. Rather than the number of movement points being directly proportional to the tech level, I think it would be more realistic if they were proportional to the square of the tech level. My reasoning is that a TL 9 fusion drive should be a lot more than 10 times faster than a TL 0 muscle-powered "engine".

Wyvern

 

[BlackJaw]

Changing the subject, I thought of an amendment yesterday to my proposal regarding the formula for calculating speed. Rather than the number of movement points being directly proportional to the tech level, I think it would be more realistic if they were proportional to the square of the tech level. My reasoning is that a TL 9 fusion drive should be a lot more than 10 times faster than a TL 0 muscle-powered "engine".

Tech Ratings are 0-9 like spell power levels.
0- (0 "points") Stone Age (fire, the wheel)
1- (1) Bronze & Iron Ages (swords, armor, simple clockwork)
2- (4) Dark/Middle Ages (little advancement historically, guns eventually)
3- (9) Age of Reason (advanced clockworks)
4- (16) Industrial Age (mechanical computers, steam & fossil fuel engines)
5- (25) Information Age (modern day; computers)
6- (36) Fusion Age? (“abundant” energy; Fusion power)
7- (49) Gravity Age? (manipulate mass/gravitons; artificial gravity)
8- (64) Energy Age? (energy manipulation; force fields)
9- (81) Mater Age? (ability to make mater out of energy; teleportation)

the "points" ratting are for the number of power "points" a system of that tech level would generate using your system (square of the tech level). I like it. Your also right that fuel could use a the same system although we still need to work that out a bit.

Recap:
an engine system generates a number of movement points per equal to 1+ the Tech Level to be split amongst speed and manuvering. For every X number of engine levels/hd/what ever we call it you have on a vessel, you also increase your needed crew (sails and a few other things might also increase crew size too.) You also increase fuel usage? what about engines that run on power directly? hmmm

For each time your speed point equal your vehicle's hit dice, you move one unit (25') as your base speed (min 1 unit? what about 1 unit as long as you have 1 level of engines?). Similarly if you have no manuvering points you are a clumsy flier (as long as you have at least 1 level of engines, although you could take all the points from your many engine levels for speed and stay clumsy at 0 manuvering). Each time your manuvering points equals your hit dice, your manuverability increases one step. Maybe it should work like speed in that you'd have to have double your hit dice to get past clumsy to poor (just like you have to have double hit dice to get to 2 grid units speed if we use the min speed rule).
Note: the min speed and manuvering rules are intended to keep the problem of designing unflyable vehicles from coming up. Any vehicle can fly as long as it has some source of speed points, although it will likely be very slow and clumsy unless it has good engines or similar abilities.

Sails:
sails are a "special function level" feature and not an engine. They are likely more effective then the low tech engines would be and require no fuel or power. they still add to your crew requirment.
A set of sails (wind, solar, psychic/etc) provides a base number of speed points and manuvering points or maybe just manuvering points. The key here is that the vehicle gets faster in faster winds. The DMG states various wind categories. For each one above normal you get +1 units (25' squares again) of speed. Slow or no wind migh even reduce your speed in units.
What I want to avoid if it can be helped is that diffrent wind speeds provide difrent numbers of movement and manuveirn points to work with. That would require recalculating the vehicle's speed depending on the current winds. This is too much work. It should be a set speed modified in grid units depending on the wind for easy of use. There can be a generic rule that with there is dead wind/no wind the vehicle can only move (at the penalized speed) if it has engines, otherwise it's simply dead.

Power Arrays: solar pannels, psychic energy collectors... etc. They draw power from the enviroment. well now, no easy overall unit bonuses or penalties work here, thankfully power scores don't get any calculations or comparisons vs size or hitdice for effect. They simply are added up and then used up. The problem here is that if vehicle is dependant on them, and your in an area that doesn't have enought power for your engines then you got a problem as far as calculating in combat, something I want to avoid at all costs.

Fuels:
Still not sure how to handle this... fuel may not need to be defined mutch but the engines and generators that run off it will. Likely a TL based system again where the engines or generators are more efficient at higher tech settings. Anyway, it should be possible to make a system that can handle both long lasting systems ( months or longer like a nuclear sub) and short lasting systems (airplane fuel lasts hours, and early ones lasted minutes) which I figure can be a part of the TL system somewhere. We also need to define how fuel is drawn on by engines of various sizes and generators, etc. Fuel should only effect overal time in flight, and should not generaly effect combat. I'd prefer a "calculate once durring vehicle construction to determine range and don't mess with again unless you rebuild part of your ship" system.

We also need to think about pricing. the 3.5 PHB has prices for nonmagical sailing ships which we can use a starting place. Keep in mind we are talking about price for just the vehicle not the weapons or special systems. Also vehicles don't give most of the benefits of flight in a D&D thanks to their size and manuvering they don't fit in dungeons, keeps, or wizard towers. Pricing might be better based off the overland flight and similar travel spells.

PS: for compatibility and standards reasons I switched to 25' squares. 30' ones didn't work well for grid use. 25' works better. movement speeds for things tend to be in 30' incriments it's true, but 30' grids were harder to determine face sizes and reaches for, etc.

 

[BlackJaw]

Tech Ratings are 0-9 like spell power levels.
0- (0 "points") Stone Age (fire, the wheel)
1- (1) Bronze & Iron Ages (swords, armor, simple clockwork)
2- (4) Dark/Middle Ages (little advancement historically, guns eventually)
3- (9) Age of Reason (advanced clockworks)
4- (16) Industrial Age (mechanical computers, steam & fossil fuel engines)
5- (25) Information Age (modern day; computers)
6- (36) Fusion Age? (“abundant” energy; Fusion power)
7- (49) Gravity Age? (manipulate mass/gravitons; artificial gravity)
8- (64) Energy Age? (energy manipulation; force fields)
9- (81) Mater Age? (ability to make mater out of energy; teleportation)

Assume that most games run a TL 9 possible setting (if some one had a TL 9 item it would function) but that most cultures don't have that kind of tech. Most D&D games seem to be at generaly a TL 2 or 3 depending on how smart the gnomes and goblins of the setting are. Some are as high as TL 4 cultures, and that is much more likely in a flight heavy setting.

A similar system could be used with ML levels (Magic Levels). Most D&D settings are able to use 9th level spells although spellcasters able to cast them are few and far between. lower level magic is more common because mroe people in the world can use it. Most commoners have likely seen 0 level spell cast but not often. Anyway, the two systems could be interchangable. the magic components and meathods for flight would likely cost as much as a tech version of the same thing. Because you don't really have a way to get infinite magic from something, even magic ships need fuel. Something that can run for a long time would likely have the magic equivilent of a Nuclear drive. Lots of powerful stored energy and costs more.

Side note: Hey! We could base the pricing system on TL or ML levels like magic items pricing!

I'm still wokring out how to deal with fuel. that always was a hard one.

 

[Wyvern]

the "points" ratting are for the number of power "points" a system of that tech level would generate using your system (square of the tech level). I like it. Your also right that fuel could use a the same system although we still need to work that out a bit.

Actually, what I recommend is using (TL+1) squared, so that Stone Age vessels aren't completely useless. At first I couldn't imagine what kind of engines a Stone Age vessel would have, but then I remembered that "engines" in this case needs to cover muscle-powered devices (pedals, giant space hamster-wheels, or even "Fred's two feet"). Also, it's more elegant for the point scale to range from 1-100 than from 0-81. The same applies to fuel (gotta have something to feed than hamster) and possibly power as well.

You also increase fuel usage?

Fuel usage wouldn't increase with more engines because fuel capacity is tied to range. More engines means you can go faster, so you use up your fuel supply that much faster, but the total fuel needed to go a given distance is the same regardless of whether you're a tortoise or a hare. Note that this is based on the assumption that you get the same "miles per gallon" at any speed. Obviously that doesn't hold true in the real world, but I'm glossing over it for the sake of simplicity. (I suppose you could argue that maneuvering thrusters use up fuel as well, but I'm also ignoring that for the same reason.)

what about engines that run on power directly?

That's what that component that converts power to movement points is for.

(min 1 unit? what about 1 unit as long as you have 1 level of engines?).

If you look back at the example I gave in my previous post, you'll see that any number of speed points from 1 up to your hit dice gives you a speed of 1 square/round.

Maybe it should work like speed in that you'd have to have double your hit dice to get past clumsy to poor (just like you have to have double hit dice to get to 2 grid units speed if we use the min speed rule).

Except that's not what I suggested. If you have 16 HD, you only need 17 speed points to move 2 squares/round, not 32.

Note: the min speed and manuvering rules are intended to keep the problem of designing unflyable vehicles from coming up.

Absoutely. The thing is, you don't need to specify minimum speed and manueverability for individual vessels if they're built into the system (i.e. so long as you have at least one engine, minimum speed is 1 square and minimum maneuverability is clumsy).

The key here is that the vehicle gets faster in faster winds. The DMG states various wind categories. For each one above normal you get +1 units (25' squares again) of speed. Slow or no wind migh even reduce your speed in units.

I like that idea. Hadn't thought of doing it that way before.

What I want to avoid if it can be helped is that diffrent wind speeds provide difrent numbers of movement and manuveirn points to work with. That would require recalculating the vehicle's speed depending on the current winds. This is too much work.

Not really, as long as you keep it in terms of multiples of a base speed. For example, a ship might move 3 squares/round in slow winds, 6 squares/round in moderate winds, etc.. If the winds get too high (gale force and beyond), the speed levels out and the maneuverability drops as the ship becomes more difficult to control. High winds should also result in a penalty to Pilot checks.

As far as sails vs. engines go, I think it's simplest to go with an either/or scenario instead of allowing a vessel to use both at once.

The problem here is that if vehicle is dependant on them, and your in an area that doesn't have enought power for your engines then you got a problem as far as calculating in combat, something I want to avoid at all costs.

Only if your engines are running directly off the power supply. If that's the case, then you just have to figure out how many speed points you get and convert that to squares/round. A bit tedious, yes, but you'd only have to do it once for a given scene, and only in special circumstances.

Anyway, it should be possible to make a system that can handle both long lasting systems ( months or longer like a nuclear sub) and short lasting systems (airplane fuel lasts hours, and early ones lasted minutes) which I figure can be a part of the TL system somewhere.

Again, you get that result (more or less) if you use (TL+1)^2 to calculate fuel points.

We also need to define how fuel is drawn on by engines of various sizes and generators, etc. Fuel should only effect overal time in flight, and should not generaly effect combat. I'd prefer a "calculate once durring vehicle construction to determine range and don't mess with again unless you rebuild part of your ship" system.

I agree. See my comments above about fuel and engines.

PS: for compatibility and standards reasons I switched to 25' squares. 30' ones didn't work well for grid use. 25' works better. movement speeds for things tend to be in 30' incriments it's true, but 30' grids were harder to determine face sizes and reaches for, etc.

I don't follow your reasoning. What is it about 30' grids that makes it hard to determine face and reach? Sure, it's not going to give you nice round multiples of 100, but that shouldn't be our primary concern; compatibility with existing rules should. If you were going to change it to anything I'd suggest a 40' grid because that's the increment used in long-range spells.

On a new topic, I had an idea about how to calculate movement points for "engines" that use magic instead of technology. The cost of conventional magic items is determined by spell level and caster level, of course, but since we're trying to emulate a generic magic engine that can use any of a number of different methods to produce movement, we don't want to have to define the specific spells involved and who's casting them.

My idea is to ignore spell level entirely and just use the formula (MA+1) x (MP+1) where MA is the magic achievement level of the cosmos and MP is the magic potential level. This gives the same range as for the tech level and ignores spell level entirely. My reasoning is that you get more "bang for your buck" in a cosmos with a high ambient magic level (i.e. magic potential), while cultures with advanced magic techniques (i.e. magic achievement) will know how to harness magical power more efficiently. As always, you can upgrade or downgrade, but in this case what that represents is using higher or lower-level spells than the default (which is deliberately left undefined).

Side note: Hey! We could base the pricing system on TL or ML levels like magic items pricing!

Actually, one of the features of the system I suggested is that you have a fixed price per level of engines, power, etc. no matter what your TL or ML is, unless you up/downgrade. The reasoning is that the relative cost of the "standard" components stays constant due to evolving production techniques, but their effectiveness (measured in movement points, fuel points, power points) increases as tech/magic level does. That is, an F-16 would cost the same now as a B-15 did 50 years ago (I have no idea if that's true; I'm just using it to illustrate how the system would work), but to buy an F-16 50 years ago (if that had been possible) would have cost a lot more.

Wyvern

 

[Wyvern]

After my previous post, I realized that I'd overlooked something in your comments about airplane fuel vs. nuclear submarines. You're actually talking about two different systems: fuel and power. A more accurate comparison would be the airplane's batteries vs. the nuclear reactor. The submarine would have one of those components I've been talking about that allows it to run its engines directly off the power supply.

Of course, this means that it would have an effectively infinite range, because I've been unconsciously treating power as infinite. You only have so much power to use at any given time, but you never 'run out'. Given this fact, it may not make sense to have a component that converts power points to fuel points (although you can still have one that converts fuel to power). Instead, you buy a component (nuclear reactor, antimatter reactor, etc.) that allows you to run the engines directly off the power supply, which gives you an unlimited range and allows you to do away with fuel entirely. (The amount of power points you allocate to the engines determines your speed, and you can change this on the fly.) This is obviously a pretty powerful ability, so it should be both expensive and limited to higher tech levels (TL 6 and above).

By the way, FWIW, here are the labels I assinged to the different tech levels:

TL 0: Stone Age
TL 1: Bronze/Iron Age
TL 2: Medieval Age
TL 3: Gunpowder Age
TL 4: Industrial Age
TL 5: Electronic Age
TL 6: Information Age
TL 7: Space Age
TL 8: Nanotech Age
TL 9: Gravity Age (?)

I deliberately avoided using terms like 'Dark Ages' and 'Age of Reason' because they imply particular sociocultural events that may not occur in all campaign worlds.

Wyvern

 

[Conaill]

Sounds really cool.

It struck me that one way to judge the balance and expressibility of your system would be to check if you can recreate traditional *mounts* with it. After all, what's a horse but a living one-person vehicle? Sounds like Large size Aberration with a crew space of 1 to me...

Heck, even on the higher side, would something like dragon mount fit into your system?

PS: some other points of comparison: the Apparatus of the Crab, and Flying Carpets!

 

[BlackJaw]

It struck me that one way to judge the balance and expressibility of your system would be to check if you can recreate traditional *mounts* with it. After all, what's a horse but a living one-person vehicle? Sounds like Large size Aberration with a crew space of 1 to me...

Heck, even on the higher side, would something like dragon mount fit into your system?

PS: some other points of comparison: the Apparatus of the Crab, and Flying Carpets!

The system was never intended for building mounts. Mounts and vehicles are very diffrent things. I'd never ride anywhere inside a horse.

As for existing magic items that allow flight, etc... well that also gets a little iffy. Is a flying carpet is really a Medium (maybe a large) sized flying machine or is a magic item that provides the abilities of a Flight spell? Those two things are not the same.

My overall concern was not for making "vehicles" of such small personal use, but for making larger vehicles. The smallest thing I worried about were 1 man fighters, although as the system developed it worked out so that you could build the equivilent of a jet pack, etc wit this system... but I never intended it to reverse engineer monsters, mounts, and magic items.

Of course if it does and it's not far off, then all the better.

 

[Conaill]

The system was never intended for building mounts. Mounts and vehicles are very diffrent things. I'd never ride anywhere inside a horse.

Eh, I think you're making an entirely unnecessary distinction there. I'd never ride anywhere inside a motorcycle either, and you've already provided the means to make living vehicles.

How do you separate the "powerplant" from the vehicle itself in your system? If you don't want to consider mounts etc, you should at the very least be able to deal with a cart or a wagon - in that case, would you look only at the "unpowered" wagon, or at the horse+wagon combination? The latter is just a horse with additional cargo space.

 

[BlackJaw]

Instead, you buy a component (nuclear reactor, antimatter reactor, etc.) that allows you to run the engines directly off the power supply, which gives you an unlimited range and allows you to do away with fuel entirely. (The amount of power points you allocate to the engines determines your speed, and you can change this on the fly.) This is obviously a pretty powerful ability, so it should be both expensive and limited to higher tech levels (TL 6 and above).

Again: I don't want to recalculate speed (something tied to size and other things) depending on the situation. It should be simpler then that. Still I like this idea as directly powered engines using more power at higher speeds... it makes a lot of sense. The problem is how do we set this up so it's not complicated. (your right, that a direct powered engine can be done a special component system, and a power into fuel system should not be made.)

TL 0: Stone Age
TL 1: Bronze/Iron Age
TL 2: Medieval Age
TL 3: Gunpowder Age
TL 4: Industrial Age
TL 5: Electronic Age
TL 6: Information Age
TL 7: Space Age
TL 8: Nanotech Age
TL 9: Gravity Age (?)

I deliberately avoided using terms like 'Dark Ages' and 'Age of Reason' because they imply particular sociocultural events that may not occur in all campaign worlds.

Wroks ok by me but we'll need to add a little refrence to the list (sample tech for each level):
TL 0: Stone Age (fire, the wheel, oars)
TL 1: Bronze/Iron Age (bronze weapons, math, sails, early clockworks)
TL 2: Medieval Age (steel, seige weapons)
TL 3: Gunpowder Age (gunpowder, cannons, seaworthy vessels, small clockworks)
TL 4: Industrial Age (steam/gas engines, assembly line, early electricity, mechanical computers)
TL 5: Electronic Age (vac-tube computers, tv, radio, early space rockets)
TL 6: Information Age (micro-processors, orbital communication satalites, cell phones, internet, space shuttles, cloning)
TL 7: Space Age (space planes, true space stations, planet collonization, gene-therapy, true-cybernetics)
TL 8: Nanotech Age (nano-tech, teraforming, cryo-stasis, near light speed travel, AI, genetic creations, biomechanical devices)
TL 9: Gravity Age (non-rotating artificial gravity, Faster then light travel/wormholes/space folding, tailormade life forms)

Maybe I should try to focus it down to a few more flight realted advancements with fewer spicifics?