Earth’s timeline for the years 2022-2084
| Year | Events |
| 2022 | Economic crisis spread, energy prices soar, unemployment and social unrest throughout the world. |
| 2023 | War in Taiwan fought with private militias, cyber attacks and terrorism. China and the U.S both deny involvement, but the media refuses to believe the disavowals. |
| 2024 | Greece, Poland and Hungary leave the European Union. Biden’s health deteriorates and Camela Harris is the Democratic candidate for the elections, wins by a narrow margin with the lowest turnout in recent U.S history. |
| 2025 | Russia leads a coalition of “marginalized countries” to speak out against the Paris climate accords, which lose their meaning. Natural disasters continue to escalate and eco-terrorism is on the rise. A cruise ship is sunk by bombs. Pope Francis dies, and Pope John Paul III is the first black pope, a moderate. |
| 2026 | The collapse of the State of Israel and the establishment of a bi-national transient parliament triggers a second Arab Spring. Saudi Arabia dissolves OPEC quickly, but rebellious mercenaries take control of the Riyadh palace shortly afterwards. North Korea collapses, and is absorbed by South Korea. |
| 2027 | A second, worse wave of Covid virus is detected, dubbed Covid-27. Panic ensues and authoritative measures are quickly adopted to prevent the spread. Resistance groups join forces with separatists in Bangladesh, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Catalunya, Central African Republic, Iraq, Morocco, Zimbabwe and more. |
| 2028 | President Vladimir Putin dies of a stroke, Russia plunges into uncertainty, and nuclear weapons are stolen. Close to the US-elections, President Harris’s plane crashes, and a Chinese-AI is blamed. |
| 2029 | Newly elected Republican U.S president Conwell’s daughter is kidnapped and murdered by eco-terrorists. The president dissolves NATO and declares a new age of isolationism. Iran conducts a successful nuclear experiment. Draught in India and southern Africa claims the lives of millions. TikTok becomes the leading social media platform in the world. |
| 2030 | The European Union reforms itself and becomes an effective one state. Luxemburg and Monaco object but are dissolved. Sweden and Norway join the union. Turkey and Iran announce a regional military defensive alliance, which is countered by a Sunni alliance from Syria to Libya. China embarks on a campaign of religious suppression some call “the second Cultural Revolution.” |
| 2031 | A new AI-managed corporation called “Sentience” uses micro-transactions and leveraged trading to become the world’s largest corporation, and uses the money to finance a mission to Mars. Governments around the world urgently pass anti-AI laws. Hungary and Poland merge with Czech Republic and Slovakia and is renamed Visegrad. It outlaws Islam. |
| 2032 | A cold-fusion experiment in Argentina goes awry, the explosion claim more than a million lives. Reports of heroes with super-human abilities rescuing survivors spread on social media. Feminist revolution in Iran spreads to nearby countries. The protests only end when legislation for gender equality is adopted. |
| 2033 | Mars colony established. European president Catherine Blanchett is the first trans leader of the EU. She sends an expeditionary force to liberate east European countries form civil war and authoritarianism, leading to a prolonged and bloody war. TikTok announces the “Street Smarts” campaign. |
| 2034 | TikTok’s Street Smarts starts buying universities and dismantling them, eliminating all of the Ivy-League universities in the U.S, Oxford, Cambridge, Al-Azhar and more. The economy changes as academic titles are no longer a legitimate requirement for employment. Lake Victoria waters become too polluted to drink by humans, the Nile River dries to a weak sludge and hydroelectric dams along it cease to function, sparking war across eastern Africa and millions of refugees. |
| 2035 | The company Medipharm develops a universal vaccine, and the whole world debates its pros and cons, as the company becomes extremely powerful. A small broker firm called Ockham’s Razor destroys the company “Sentience” in one day, no one understands how. Mozambique develops the first functioning cold fusion power plant. It receives a one-time grant to register the technology as open source, but the money destroys the Mozambique economy. |
| 2036 | A nuclear weapon is detonated in Sofia. The regional military alliances of the world agree to create a global taskforce to deploy AI against nuclear terrorism. A new spiritual movement inspired by Rastafari, Judaism and Voudoun spreads in the Caribbean, North Africa and central Asia (Kazakhstan, Pakistan, etc). |
| 2037 | TikTok announces a joint campaign with Medipharm to install bioscripts for any who are vaccinated with the universal vaccine. The Communist Party announces that TikTok is dissolved, but the company evaded the authorities and encouraged a series of revolts which broke apart China into smaller countries. |
| 2038 | A global blight called “Sirup” destroys 80% of the rice crops. Food prices soar, famine in developing countries. |
| 2039 | Climate conference in Khartoum announces that fusion power will not solve the climate crisis on its own, because of a lack of efficient means for energy transfer and storage. |
| 2040 | Augmented Reality Projector (ARP) are becoming very popular, and replace phones, personal computers, means of payment, identification papers and keys for a large part of the population. APR is an extension of bioscript technology. |
| 2041 | Ecoterrorists take over AI-controlled naval ships and sink hundreds of cargo ships before the naval ships are finally sunk. |
| 2042 | West African cities adopt a new communal archology economic system. Youth movements in Europe and North America take over abandoned campuses and start building arcologies. |
| 2043 | A year with both an extremely cold winter and an extremely hot summer causes three million climate-related deaths. One thousand eco-terrorists turn themselves in to the authorities and create a large protest movement demanding their release. |
| 2044 | India-Pakistan war almost ends in nuclear exchange until massive international intervention brokers a cease-fire, over a million casualties are registered, mostly on the Indian side. |
| 2045 | A resupply ship to the Mars colony finds that all the colonists are dead. Colonization efforts resume. |
| 2046 | Chechenia declares independence, Venezuela declares war on the U.S, Okinawa base destroyed by bombs, Eritrea conquers Ethiopia. Years later it will be discovered that all of these events were supported by AI and by TikTok. |
| 2047 | Steep increase in stillbirth and child mortality found to be caused by a virus, called Vilomah, which is immune to the universal vaccine. |
| 2048 | Astronomy professor Nahed Abdelrazzak of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology claims to find proof of sentient extraterrestrial life which sent a message to Earth. Her university is destroyed in an attack and she is killed. |
| 2049 | Green Culture is a new movement in which every individual attempts to cancel their own carbon footprint. The movement encourages growing weeds and ivy, turning cities green. Vigilante attacks against anyone who tries to cut down weeds and unwanted plants spread across the globe. |
| 2050 | APR is discovered to emit cancer-causing radiation, hundreds of millions are at risk. |
| 2051 | Nanosurgery technology improves the chance of surviving cancer, but is available only to the rich. |
| 2052 | Journalists expose that a cure exists for the Vilomah virus but which governments have carefully controlled and made available only to a handful, as part of a plan to reduce Earth’s population. |
| 2053 | All Mother introduces the crystal capacitor technology. Her corporation Aquamarine sells cheap, clean, renewable energy. |
| 2054 | Visegrad crumbles into a civil war, fueled by foreign mercenaries. Nigeria is the first, and last, country in the world that grants full citizenship to AIs. Within days the government falls and a new movement takes over, re-writing the constitution and deleting Ais. |
| 2055 | Economic crash utterly destroys the world’s four strongest currencies. Surprisingly, the economic upheaval is less destructive than expected. |
| 2056 | The Teacher defeats a nuclear-armed AI and introduces applied quantum calculations. |
| 2057 | With a series of satellites, Aquamarine provides more than 99% of the energy across north and south America, Australia and New Zealand. |
| 2058 | Ecoterrorist groups around the world become manipulated by their military-grade Ais, and are liberated by the Teacher, which becomes their mascot. |
| 2059 | The Teacher unites the western Chinese provinces with a series of armed groups along the Belt and Road, and declares the establishment of Eastasia. |
| 2060 | The Survivor cures cancer for thousands. |
| 2061 | Lot of Sodom declares himself a prophet from the future and spreads the word of the “Inevitable Extinction,” calling on people to abandon their flesh and blood and live virtual lives. Over two million people will eventually commit suicide to join Sodom’s “virtual paradise” and tens of millions of cult followers will instead abandon the cult. |
| 2062 | The first year in 100 years in which average global temperatures are in decline and non-renewable resource consumption became sustainable. All stock exchanges close in favor of online trading. |
| 2063 | The All-Mother offers debt jubilee for every state that will join Oceania and give up its sovereignty. Oceania will grow to become the world’s largest country in a few years. |
| 2064 | The concept of the Contested Zones emerges to describe the large swath of land across the Middle East in which city states declare independence and wage war on each other in proxy wars. |
| 2065 | The Survivor is elected president of the EU, and announces that the EU will be renamed Eurasia and will be expanded to include Russia and North Africa. |
| 2066 | Eurasia, Eastasia and Oceania sign the Izmir Covenant, which sets up rules of engagement in lawful war and denies any other country legitimacy. |
| 2067 | The west coast of North America is ravaged by Hurricane Goerge. Over five million casualties. |
| 2068 | The Survivor cures the Vilomah virus and reveals the Farsan as her elite biotic soldiers. |
| 2069 | The Teacher ends the judicial branch, outlaws attorneys and courts in Eastasia. |
| 2070 | The All-Mother reveals that Oceania established a small colony in orbit around Jupiter. |
| 2071 | All-out war between Oceania and Eastasia over central Africa ends with the bombing of the Lusaka arcology with ten million residents. No survivors. Oceania and Eastasia pay reparations and execute war criminals. |
| 2072 | Eurasia launches a global news service edited and broadcast by AIs, called Global News. Eating meat more than once per week is a punishable offence in Eastasia. |
| 2073 | The Ural war between Eurasia and Eastasia extends from Kabul to Helsinki, and will last for years. |
| 2074 | A massive rebellion spreads in Eurasia, but the Survivor instructs her soldiers not to suppress it. Within a few months, almost all of the rebels die of a mutation of tuberculosis. |
| 2075 | Within one month, every government in the world announces a new social safety net plan. |
| 2076 | Oceania and Eastasia fight a fierce naval war, Pacific islands change sides constantly, the Philippines becomes part of the Contested Zones. |
| 2077 | First shipment of ice lands on Earth delivered from the moon Io in orbit around Jupiter. |
| 2078 | An ecoterrorist organization obtains a nuclear weapon and plans to drop it on Shanghai. They arm a powerful AI with the weapon, but the AI betrays them and the weapon is handed to the authorities. All the terrorists are arrested. |
| 2079 | The Earth’s population is at five and a half billion people, the climate crisis is declared over. |
| 2080 | The first human to reach the age of 150 is Takishima Mika. |
| 2081 | A rebellion network calling itself “The Militia” accumulates power within Oceania. They drill for oil, refine petrol and build an army, which is crushed by an army of Oceania’s hovertanks. |
| 2082 | Oceania’s supreme court declares augmentations to be a human right but access to glycyrrhizin is not. The All-Mother closes the judicial system in response. |
| 2083 | The Teacher declares salts to be a controlled substance and eliminates eight global drug cartels who trade in it. The Survivor condemns this act and launches a series of attacks into Eastasia. |
| 2084 | Bananas are declared extinct. Present day. |
Technology
Bioscript
A tiny subdermal chip fueled by biological energy is embedded into the arm of newborn babies. It contains a unique ID-pattern which enables surveillance and tracking, and a memory chip which collects information about the person as they age, such as their criminal record, their bank account balance, contact information, next of kin in case of an accident and so on. If an arrest warrant is issued against someone with a bioscript, their location is constantly reported to local authorities.
Ship Components
Airlock and corridor
The airlock is designed to allow only one door to be open at any given time, forcing passage in or out of the vessel through cycling. The main ship corridor connects to the airlock and to all other components on the ship. If the airlock is destroyed or severely damage, the main corridor is depressurized and although individual components (such as living quarters, the cockpit, etc.) may still remain pressurized, it becomes impossible to move between components without a space suit, and the components cannot be opened without depressurizing them.
Large vessels often install more than one airlock system. This creates a redundancy and the possibility to lock out parts of the internal corridors which have become depressurized. Only when all the airlock systems were destroyed, the main corridor becomes depressurized and ship components become isolated.
Ammunition Box
A secure storage area for ammunition is designed to make sure that explosive ammunition does not move around and gets triggered during ship maneuvering. Robotic arms connect the ship’s weapons to the ammunition box for automatic reloading. One unit of ammunition box can carry 80 standard-sized mortar shells, 40 small missiles or 13,333 PDA slugs (enough for 40 combat rounds).
Annihilation Core
A quick and dirty solution for providing energy to a vessel, the annihilation core is commonly installed on military vessels or vessels which are built quickly. The core produces electrical energy by colliding matter and anti-matter. Anti-matter capsules must be kept as fuel for the annihilation core, and the high maintenance requirements of anti-matter makes the annihilation core a risky and expensive power source, but one which can produce large amounts of power instantly, and is therefore suitable for powering a vessel in combat. The annihilation core creates waste – highly unstable radioactive particles which decay swiftly. These particles are contained in the same containers that contain the anti-matter and are either disposed of or used as weapons.
Cargo hold
A cargo hold is simply a large open area with webbings to keep cargo secure during fast maneuvers. Unless a special system is installed, the cargo hold maintains the same temperature as the rest of the vessel and is pressurized with the same air. Some ships include a large bay door at the cargo hold which allows them to jettison the cargo instantly by opening the door and depressurizing the cargo hold. This tactic is useful to quickly reduce the mass of the ship if needed, or to get rid of pirates by forcing the pirates to choose between collecting the cargo or pursuing the ship.
Cockpit
A cockpit is a module that allows four human-sized crew members to operate the controls of a vessel in a comfortable and pressurized environment. The cockpit contains the ship’s main computer core and memory storage. Up to eight crewmembers can squeeze into one cockpit if needed. A half-module for a cockpit can house one pilot comfortably or two who squeeze, and is usually reserved for short-range vessels in which the pilot will not have to spend more than a few hours at a time. Each ship system can also be operated directly on the spot, and if the cockpit is damaged, crew may still directly operate engines, thrusters and weapons by moving from system to system and operating them manually. Another common feature in ships is substations which are small control panels distributed in the ship, and connected (usually with wires) to the cockpit. The crew in the cockpit can allocate access to these substations, and it is possible to lock down the controls in the cockpit itself and transfer controls to a substation on another part of the ship.
Crew quarters
One unit of crew quarters provides a residential area for a small crew. One unit is usually enough for four single beds, a small kitchen and pantry, a toilet and a shower, and a single table with chairs for dining and group activities. For long journeys, squeezing more than four human-sized crewmembers into one unit of crew quarters is not a good idea. Wealthy passengers and captains sometimes create a large suite for themselves to use exclusively.
Fuel container
A fuel container is reinforced, insulated and contains machines to measure the fuel’s pressure and control its rate of flow. Fuel containers are designed for gravitic fuel, sometimes called “exotic matter,” a fuel designed to be used by gravity drive and which does not power the ship’s systems during normal operations. Exotic matter is usually created from noble gasses, which are quantum-activated to synchronize the spin of all the electrons, and then pumped up with kinetic, chemical, nuclear and electric energy to the point that the spin-synchronization is perfectly randomized again. One unit of fuel is defined as the amount of fuel needed to propel one ship component by one light year through a gravity drive. A single unit of a fuel container can hold up to 1,000 fuel units.
Gravity Drive
Theory: the gravity drive is built according to the theory that gravitons travel instantly across vast space, faster than the speed of light. The drive creates a bubble around the vessel in which it is installed and entangles the particles within the bubble with the particles of a nearby star (or other significant concentration of mass). Rather than entangling all of the particles themselves, it entangles the gravitons of the vessel with the gravitons at the target.
When the drive is engaged, the crew must observe the drive, causing the quantum wave function to collapse. The bubble squeezes unto itself as if its mass has increased thousandsfold for a fraction of second, and then the ship crosses the entire distance almost instantly. In relative time, a month has passed, even though subjective time aboard the ship seems not to have passed at all.
Practically, the drive requires strict conditions to operate. If the drive is engaged too close to mass or debris, it tends to get caught in the bubble and be transported with the ship. When the ship arrives, this debris maintains the ship’s speed and direction (even if it had a different movement vector prior to jump), which can cause damage to local facilities at the destination. The drive can be engaged by a sentient conscious being only, otherwise the quantum function doesn’t collapse. Fuel cost is 1 fuel unit per module point per light year. Locking in on the target is a chancy matter. An accurate lock of 100% is impossible, but 99% is only possible if the ship is moving at 1% of the speed of light (3,000km/s). If the speed is smaller, the chance of an accurate lock is smaller. For example, at 1,500km/s the chance of an accurate lock is 50%. Each miss sends the ship either insystem (50%) or outsystem (50%). The miss begins at 0.5 AU on average, and then you roll the lock again and again, each failure increases the miss by 0.5 AU in the same direction of the original miss. This means that an inaccurate jump could easily cause the ship to appear within the gravity well of the star, certain death. The star towards which the speed is moving will be the target of the jump.
A standard gravity drive has a range of 8 light years, but technologically-advanced races were able to extend this range. The bubble extends to include the farthest parts of the ship from the center, and then about 12-15 meters beyond that point. The gravity drive is usually best located in the center of the ship.
Upon arrival, the ship is in the system in a more or less random location (but always in line with the main orbital disc around the star), and moving at breakneck speed. The speed, however, is considered to be “theoretical” speed because it was partially generated by entangling particles across a great distance. The crew can accomplish a “speed dump” by examining the drive again and clearing out remaining quantum spin. The ship decelerates under its own power, but during the dump it sheds half of its speed instantly. Every ten minutes or so, the crew can achieve another dump, halving the speed again and again. A speed dump does not affect any loose mass which is caught in the bubble, which appears to shoot forward as the ship slows down in relative speed.
One serious danger with a gravity jump, is that it can be used as a weapon. Arriving ships are almost never accurate enough to aim mass which they brought with them at useful targets at the destination, but leaving ships may take a “bite” of mass, but jumping while a piece of another ship or a space station is within their bubble. An entire space station could be destroyed with a well-aimed bubble, but the departing ship will have almost no starting speed, so it will almost certainly be lost in deep space or incinerated in a star. Only a conscious crew can start a jump, so an auto-piloted or remote-controlled ship will not initiate a gravity jump, someone must sacrifice herself. Some ambitious ship captains try to initiate a jump during ship combat, but it is incredibly difficult to do this successfully. The ship has to be aimed at the target star and moving at sufficient speed, only a truly foolish captain will try to come near enough to a ship which is speeding in the direction of a nearby star and match that ship’s speed for long enough for the other crew to initiate a jump.
The experience of travelling with a gravity drive is unnerving. The crew all suffer one stress point unless the are in cold sleep. The strain on the body is tremendous. Clocks on the ship advance as if a month has passed. Organic crewmembers shed hair, and lost weight as if they haven’t eaten in many days (about 6%-12% of body weight). They also dehydrate. Sometimes crewmembers report that they dreamed during the jump, and arrived confused and disoriented. Although it is very important to drink and eat immediately after arrival, it is difficult to hold food and drinks down, inexperienced crewmembers often vomit the first thing which they try to eat or drink. “Stringing jumps” is the habit of travelling quickly from one star to the next (when the ship’s destination is more than 8 light years away), a very dangerous and difficult prospect.
Hydroponic farm
A hydroponic farm is a module which protects plants from the rigors of space travel. Rotating growing beds ensure that water and seeds do not scatter during ship maneuvers or zero gravity, and artificial light feeds the plants. The farms produce food and oxygen and purify water. The crop amount depends on the quality of the seeds, and the crew can replant the best seeds to improve the crop yield over time.
Laser cannon
The laser cannon is a medium-ranged standard weapon which draws energy from the ship’s core and does not need a dedicated ammunition box. The laser fires in short bursts and can puncture, cut and overheat targets at the same time. At long range the cannon suffers +1 to TN and at very long range it’s +3 to TN.
The laser cannon can be used with the Indirectly, Precisely and Quickly tactics. If it hits it destroys a single module. Additional successes destroy additional modules – one per success beyond the first (not counting successes countered by dodging). A laser cannon can also be used for mining asteroids.
Life support
A space-structure life support system is essential for life to exist inside its pressurized area for long. The life support system doesn’t create food, water or oxygen, but it does clean water and air and it monitors and controls the ship’s internal pressure, oxygen levels and temperature to make it as comfortable as possible. Life support systems usually require gravity to function, and can be installed on a rotating ring around a ship to make sure that they operate when the ship is stationary. If life support systems are destroyed or disabled, the rate in which oxygen runs out and the temperature changes (either up or down) depends on how many crewmembers exist in how big a ship. Having a lot of pressurized cargo holds, for example, extends the time which crew can survive without a life support system. Life support systems contain high-pressure air bottles, and automatically attempt to repressurize ship areas which became depressurized, but a failsafe system exists that stops the efforts if the ship area is not airtight. This means that if the main hallway is blown to outer space, crew can move between the crew quarters and the cockpit while wearing space suits. When they do so, they depressurize both areas, but if they close the doors, the life support system will refill the air in the crew quarters and the cockpit, but not in the hallway.
Medical bay
The medical bay is a small clinic, surgery room and first-aid station. Up to two people can be treated at once on the beds, and up to eight cold sleep units can be kept connected to a monitoring device. Medical checks and surgery within the medical bay are done at -1 to TN. There is also a supply of simple medicine, antiseptic, bandages, etc.
Missile launcher
The missile launcher is comprised of two tubes and is designed to fire two small missiles at the same target. MK8 Jiangshi missiles have an ultimate very long range, but reach targets at long or further ranges one round after they are fired. They are heat-seeking and their depleted-uranium warhead is built to channel explosive energy forward to punch a deep hole through a heavily-armored target.
A missile launcher can use the Forcefully or Indirectly tactics. It fires two small missiles with each shot (an ammunition box can hold 40 small missiles). If it hits with one or more successes, the missile destroys one module. If the first hit module is an armor module, the armor is destroyed and the missile destroys another random module as well. Additional successes can destroy additional modules or hit the target ship’s maneuvering jets or thrusters, imposing a +2 TN penalty on maneuvering for 2 combat rounds.
Particle cannon
The particle cannon uses magnetic energy to accelerate unstable particles in a tight stream towards the target at near-light speed. The particle beam can cut through metal, overload electronic devices and incinerate organic material. Even if the beam isn’t strong enough to destroy an object, it leaves a powerful radioactive residue which emits deadly radiation for a few minutes after impact.
A particle cannon can be used with every tactic except Consistently. It has long range, and can be fired constantly without reloading or cooling for as long as the ammunition lasts. If it hits, it destroys a single module. Additional successes can be used to contaminate nearby modules with deadly radiation (one module per success), or to reroll the hit location and choose one. At the cost of two successes, the particle beam can destroy two modules with one shot (or three at the cost of four successes, etc.). The first success in any shot counts only to land a hit. If the defender has successes with dodging, the attacker must spend at least as many successes as the defender has to counter the dodging. The next success is used to land the hit, and any additional remaining successes can be used to increase the damage.
PDC
The point-defense cannon is a defensive weapon which fires 5,000 slugs per minute with great precision to destroy incoming missiles, asteroids or small assault craft. It is effective in up to short range, and suffers +2 to TN per additional range category. It requires massive amounts of ammunition, and an ammunition box can hold up to 20 combat rounds worth of slugs.
A PDC can be used with any tactic. Successes can be used to eliminate missiles, drones and small asteroids or to deal damage to an enemy craft. One success is enough to land a hit, and the damage inflicted is one module. Each additional success destroys an additional module. However, the PDC does not destroy armor modules, and is wasted against them.
Observatory
An observatory is a system of long-range telescopes coupled with a powerful computer and a crystal information storage database. The observatory records visual input to create a map of nearby stars and other celestial objects, while updating the map based on new information as the ship travels. The observatory has a station with a user interface which allows the ship’s navigator to plan the ship’s travel.
Steel Fabricator
The fabricator is a condensed robotic factory which can melt, forge, bend, cut, polish metals into desired shapes based on blueprints which are programmed into its computer. It can smelt ores and separate alloys into component metals, and can be used to forge interlocking metallic components which, when put together, can form large structures. The fabricator must be fed with metal (which can be ores, debris or ingots) and uses the ship’s power supply to power its furnace and robotic tools. A single fabricator can produce steel items with a mass of approximately 50kg per hour.
Thrusters
A simple thruster uses electrical energy to fire a steady stream of ions to accelerate the ship forward. An ion thruster cannot be used inside an atmosphere, and is not strong enough to takeoff from high-gravity planets even if they do not have an atmosphere. The ion stream is dangerous, but very narrow and only damages objects in its direct path. It dissipates within minutes.
A single thruster module can propel 100 modules forward at a steady acceleration of 1g, or a smaller ship at higher acceleration rates. Several thrusters may be combined to create faster ships or to propel larger ships.
Thrusters without turning jets are almost useless, because the ship cannot turn or decelerate. Some ships install forward thrusters to be able to decelerate without turning, which is especially useful for combat vessels who want to be able to control the range to a target while keeping the weapons pointed at the target at all times.
Turning jets
Turning jets use electrical energy to overheat gas and then expel it at super speed through a complex system of nozzles which can be pointed in various directions to create a rapid spin speed for a ship and allow it to turn. Turning jets operate in short bursts – usually two at a time, one to get the ship spinning and one to stop the spin as soon as the ship is oriented in the right direction.
A single module of turning jets allows the ship to turn up or down, left or right, to pitch or yaw. In emergencies or during docking maneuvers, turning jets can also be used to create thrust and move the ship around, but at very low acceleration rate (as a rule of thumb, a single turning jets module on a 100 module ship can create 0.1g acceleration). Turning jets either overheat or run out of gas if they are used this way for extended periods of time, and usually have to be shut off after 6 hours of consecutive use or 48 hours of total use.