General Hypothetical: Detonating your reactor.

[mike wightman]

I like the reasoning, it meshes well with canon.

Now if we can just find a reason that a black globe equipped ship with full capacitors still needs fuel to jump while a collector based system doesn't.

(note the following typical answers are already rules out by canon precedent - there is no hydrogen filled jump bubble, the hydrogen does not create a wormhole, black hole, naked singularity)

 

[Condottiere]

Exotic particles seem to be the key.

Tee Five gives three possible methods, or environments, in traversing hyperspace with a jump drive.

 

[Grav_Moped]

Now if we can just find a reason that a black globe equipped ship with full capacitors still needs fuel to jump while a collector based system doesn't.

Exotic particles seem to be the key.

Tee Five gives three possible methods, or environments, in traversing hyperspace with a jump drive.

Pretty much this. The "fast-burn reaction" produces/does something that is necessary to make Jump happen. Collectors not only do that something, but also maintain the jump bubble/field without using external power other than that supplied by the Collector. (MgT and LBB2 '77 don't need external power to maintain the jump field.)

My headcanon says that a Collector generates the entire (18EP*Jn*Td)/100 as it discharges the tank of Pure Energy* for Jump, while spewing out whatever magic particles are needed to make the Jump happen. The dregs of the tank of magic particles are trickled out over the course of the week in Jump, and they're exactly what is needed to keep the Jump Field intact. A normal power plant doesn't make those particles, and has to substitute electrical power to achieve the same effect but with less efficiency.


-------------
*if you're not hearing this in Spock's voice, why aren't you?

 

[Rigel Stardin]

@Grav_Moped "*if you're not hearing this in Spock's voice, why aren't you?"

Are we referring to a certain song here

 

[Grav_Moped]

@Grav_Moped "*if you're not hearing this in Spock's voice, why aren't you?"

Are we referring to a certain song here

We are, indeed.

 

[HanleyTucks]

What suggests that a fusion reactor can "detonate"?

The Rule of Cool (TM).

Same as Jump drives, artificial gravity, lasers manned by gunners and all the rest.

Now, if we want something more-or-less realistic, I'm all on-board with that, and that's how I run my games. But that's something different to what we usually have in CT.

 

[kilemall]

The Rule of Cool (TM).

Same as Jump drives, artificial gravity, lasers manned by gunners and all the rest.

Now, if we want something more-or-less realistic, I'm all on-board with that, and that's how I run my games. But that's something different to what we usually have in CT.

Hmmm well try this if you must have that bang.

Compare that power plant EP rating to meson gun inputs for either 50 or 100 ton bays, use minimum rating and increase for TL. If it’s big enough to rate spinal, then the maximum spinal gun the power plant matches at its tech level. If too low TL or EP rating to qualify for even a bay, use attack factor 1.

Power plant auto destroyed, roll the rest as internals and radiation as though a meson gun hit.

May or may not destroy the ship but certainly should render it useless and possibly kill boarders with crew hits.

 

[whartung]

The Rule of Cool (TM).

Well, in that case you just tell the computer: "Code 0 0 0 Destruct 0"

Mind, if you plan on doing this in the downport, I'd ask for more than a 60s countdown to get out of dodge.

 

[mike wightman]

Each EP is the equivalent of 62.5kg of TNT.

For a scout you get a bigger bang detonating your jump capacitors, for a Tigress you get 40000x67.5 = 2.5kt equivalent blowing its reactor, while detonating its jump capacitors would be 10,000x36x62.5 = 22.5kt of TNT.

Enough to gut the ship but not enough to affect anything nearby.

 

[aramis]

Enough to gut the ship but not enough to affect anything nearby.

Holing the Fusion PP should clear engineering and might blow the doors... and by clear, I pretty much mean "Heat sanitize"
It WILL render the PP non-fuctional.

If one does a deuterium &/or tritium dump, one can probably spike the output power to blow every fuse aboard...

But a proper reactor is going to be built as much as practical to not permit anything big to happen..

And as for blowing the walls? 33cm steel is the equivalent minimumm hull (at least per MT)... so

 

[Spinward Flow]

In Hollywood, everything explodes.
EVERYTHING.

I'm reminded of the Stargate SG-1 100th episode ... Wormhole X-treme ...

BIGGER!
What is it about the word BIGGER that you don't understaaaaand???

 

[Grav_Moped]

In Hollywood, everything explodes.
EVERYTHING.

I'm reminded of the Stargate SG-1 100th episode ... Wormhole X-treme ...

BIGGER!
What is it about the word BIGGER that you don't understaaaaand???

Made of Explodium. (TVTropes)

 

[Grav_Moped]

A normal power plant doesn't make those particles, and has to substitute electrical power to achieve the same effect but with less efficiency.

Which explains why power plants are normally Pn=Jn rather than Pn=2*Jn (which would ensure a Jump in a single turn). They're sized for the continuous load of maintaining the Jump Field, rather than the peak load of topping off the capacitors.

 

[Condottiere]

Depending on edition.

 

[Drakon]

I think one of the biggest drawbacks to getting a fusion plant to explode is fuel rate, which is governed by the size of the fuel pipe. Unless you have oversized piping on your intake side, designing a fusion plant that does NOT explode, indeed CANNOT explode should be fairly trivial.

I think that for fusion plants, making them so they CAN explode is going to be tough, and then you have to ask why you want that. (Especially outside of a military setting.)

 

[HanleyTucks]

It's not hard to imagine why they might explode - if you're talking a magnetically-confined plasma, suddenly dropping the field will allow a rapid expansion of the plasma. It's along the lines of suddenly dropping the coolant from a fission reactor, for example by popping the lid off and letting the pressurised steam out, or letting the molten sodium contact an oxygen atmosphere. BOOM!

How big an explosion is another matter. It'd be enough to disable the ship, that's for sure, but getting what's effectively an H-bomb out of it requires some vague handwaving over how you get the thing to work in the first place. Which is why I say: if you're doing realish, then that's what you're doing; otherwise, let the Rule of Cool override all.

I once had players "dump the core" from a free trader as they charged and pulled away from an enemy carrier, essentially dive-bombing the thing. BLAMMO! right into the bridge. Enemy ship half-destroyed. Of course, now they had no main power source or functioning drive, and so they kept moving in the same direction at the same speed indefinitely... Victory comes at a price! Set the distress signal and into the coldsleep tubes, boys and girls, friendlies might pick you up one day.

It was cool.

 

[kilemall]

I think that for fusion plants, making them so they CAN explode is going to be tough, and then you have to ask why you want that. (Especially outside of a military setting.)

On this point, I can see certain mentalities generating a policy of self-destruct to avoid computers, personnel and/or equipment to fall into an unknown’s hands. In an extreme this might apply to commercial vessels as well.

 

[Drakon]

It's not hard to imagine why they might explode - if you're talking a magnetically-confined plasma, suddenly dropping the field will allow a rapid expansion of the plasma. It's along the lines of suddenly dropping the coolant from a fission reactor, for example by popping the lid off and letting the pressurised steam out, or letting the molten sodium contact an oxygen atmosphere. BOOM!

I am thinking more wiffle ball, firing-two-beams-of-protons-at-each-other kind of fusion (Polywell fusor) under electric, magnetic and possibly gravimetric confinement. In such a case, power is limited by fuel flow. Which in turn, is limited by pipe size and pressure. It seems a safer system than one relying on maintaining containment. (which is my big beef with anti-matter plants, besides where do you get the fuel)

 

[Dragoner]

If there is a big red button, some chaos goblin will smash that down at some point. Also, considering the engineering standpoint is that if the switch gets dirty, and its connectors arc, it could potentially accidentally detonate without any human interaction.

RUD Inspector: "It blew up!"