Type S3 Far Scout/Courier

[TamsinP]

Has anyone else considered that unrefined fuel makes little sense? Hydrogen is hydrogen, isn’t it? At best it’s a big “coffee filter” contraption and it would make sense that it higher tech levels. It would be functionally included or unnecessary.

The are two possibilities of what unrefined means.

1. Mostly hydrogen, but with impurities (eg from skimming gas giants); in this case refining is done to remove the impurities

2. A mix of hydrogen isotopes (protium, deuterium, tritium); in this case, refining is done to remove certain isotopes to get a pure version of the isotope you want (almost certainly pure protium, given the relative occurrence of the heavier isotopes; also because using deuterium or tritium for fusion would generate a lot of neutron radiation which would require extensive shielding).

 

[Condottiere]

Someone needed a three hundred percent markup, to justify his Christmas bonus.

Though I'm told, in some parts, ground water is free, as long as you own the property.

 

[Dragoner]

IMTU refinement is conversion to metastable negative mass protium.

 

[Spinward Flow]

Hydrogen is hydrogen, isn’t it?

What's the PURITY LEVEL of that Hydrogen, then?
No "contaminants" in it?

 

[kilemall]

Has anyone else considered that unrefined fuel makes little sense? Hydrogen is hydrogen, isn’t it? At best it’s a big “coffee filter” contraption and it would make sense that it higher tech levels. It would be functionally included or unnecessary.

Hydrogen is not just plain hydrogen.

For fusion power plants it’s deuterium and tritium, which are very small percentages of general hydrogen.

For jump drive, depends on your conception of what it is using the hydrogen for. It may require more deuterium, or may require pure protium.

Then you have the feedstocks, either gas giants or water.

With gas giants no telling what methanes, ammonia or other gasses would get pulled in and need to be sorted out.

With water/ice there is separation of oxygen plus clearing out impurities.

Pretty impressive little refiner. It stays IMTU.

 

[TamsinP]

For example, the composition of Jupiter's atmosphere is:

89%±2.0% hydrogen (pure protium-protium)
10%±2.0% helium
0.3%±0.1% methane
0.026%±0.004% ammonia
0.0028%±0.001% hydrogen deuteride (1 protium atom combined with 1 deuterium atom).
0.0006%±0.0002% ethane
0.0004%±0.0004% water

 

[AlHazred]

I'm currently running the MgT2 adventure High 'n' Dry, and am considering replacing the ship in the adventure, the Highndry, with one of these. In the adventure, the Scout Service has hired the PCs to return the ship to a Scout Base for refit, as their records show it hasn't been in for a while, and the previous crew have all apparently been arrested.

IMTU, I'm having the crew be, just, extremely greedy but also somewhat lazy -- they've taken opportunities for gray-market (or black-market) aftermarket modification of their Suleiman-class Scout/Courier, but then haven't done any maintenance beyond minor regular type. So, the ship's jump drives are currently only capable of jump-1, but are actually upgraded TL13 drives, etc. etc.

EDIT: I will note, this creates and added complication in the scenario. The PCs have been given spares by the Scout who sent them, to get the vessel spaceworthy enough to get it back to Flammarion. If the crew replaced the drives with black market units and didn't document it, then the TL9 spares the crew bring with them won't work. I am considering allowing a huge amount of jury-rigging if they make sufficiently good rolls. Alternatively, they can try to acquire spare parts somewhere else and bring them to Walston (where the ship is) and repair it with those.

The module has four areas they need to repair:

• Flight controls and navigational systems (bridge)
• General shipboard electronics (dispersed throughout the ship)
• Power systems electronics (engineering)
• Drive systems electronics (engineering)

I'm thinking the second one, the spares might work. But everything else will have been replaced...

 

[Spinward Flow]

If the crew replaced the drives with black market units and didn't document it, then the TL9 spares the crew bring with them won't work. I am considering allowing a huge amount of jury-rigging if they make sufficiently good rolls.

Alternatively ...

Go ahead and let the PCs get the ship (barely...) spaceworthy, but stuck at J1. So long as the Suleiman-class Scout/Courier fuel tanks remain intact and capable of holding 40 tons of fuel, the PCs could potentially do some J1+1+1 navigating across 3 parsecs from Bowman/District 268 to Flammarion/Sword Worlds.

• Walston​
• Bowman​
• 567-908​
• Asteltine​
• Flammarion​

If you wanted to be REALLY conniving as a Referee ... you'd tell your PC Engineer, straight up, once they get to inspect the "damage" to the ship, that it looks like the drives have been ... modified ...

If the PCs bite and want to know more, you can dole out (drip by drip) that "there are a lot of non-standard parts" installed in the ship, which with enough investigation (and good skill rolls, naturally) someone might eventually figure out, "hey, I think this is illegal gear..."

If the PCs manage to get the ship back to the scout waystation at Flammarion, the line techs are going to figure out REALLY FAST that the ship is loaded with illegal modifications ... at which point it becomes important whether or not the PCs reported those illegal mods or otherwise tried to keep quiet about it (in the hopes that no one would notice).

Depending on how the PCs deal with the "illegal mods" on the ship they needed to recover from Walston, they might get a follow up mission to track down where the black market stuff came from (and who might have sold it) ...



In other words, you could potentially use the salvage/recovery operation of moving the Type-S from Walston to Flammarion as the prelude/setup for a bigger(?) follow up for breaking open a smuggling ring (or equivalent) ... depending on how the PCs play the cards they're dealt ...

Those illegal mods open up opportunities for counter-intel/police action style campaign work for the PCs.

 

[Grav_Moped]

Not too familiar with MgT2 (might take a look at it this evening) but I think you can do something similar to the LBB2-LBB5 "tech upgrade" I used here, just based on TL advances inside the MgT2 ruleset. Even if RAW doesn't literally support it, you can always house-rule it. (And if RAW doesn't support it, that means it's very, very high tech and raises the question of where did that tech originate?)

 

[AlHazred]

Not too familiar with MgT2 (might take a look at it this evening) but I think you can do something similar to the LBB2-LBB5 "tech upgrade" I used here, just based on TL advances inside the MgT2 ruleset. Even if RAW doesn't literally support it, you can always house-rule it. (And if RAW doesn't support it, that means it's very, very high tech and raises the question of where did that tech originate?)

Oh, I'm running it in Traveller Hero, so I can do what I want. I generally use CT shipbuilding (because that's what I'm familiar with) and translate the results to TH when I have all the numbers. Comstar/Avenger Enterprises already has done the math, in Traveller Hero Book 2. I just need to modify for the "real vessel" and give the PCs the "standard vessel" writeup when they get to the ship.

The way I've modified High 'n' Dry, the Scout who sent them to recover the ship has an intelligence mission for them in the Sword Worlds. He mostly needs this ship because it's been there before, and should be remembered by the various system. Whether or not they can keep the modifications after refit...

Well, the patron Scout (Anders Casarii) is expecting to have to repair and refit the ship to standard Type S configuration. The modifications will definitely cost more. Who's going to bear that difference in cost?

If the ship is stuck at jump 1 until repair, then they'll hit three systems before they get back to Flammarion. There's the potential there that they can pick up some extra cash to pay for the difference.

 

[aramis]

Has anyone else considered that unrefined fuel makes little sense? Hydrogen is hydrogen, isn’t it? At best it’s a big “coffee filter” contraption and it would make sense that it higher tech levels. It would be functionally included or unnecessary.

Refined is pretty much pure H2 and traces of HD, D2, HT, DT, and T3; unrefined includes a notable amount of any/all of H2O (Water), CH4 (Methane), NH3 (Ammonia), C2H6 (Ethane), and deuterides thereof (HDO, D2O, CH3D, CH2D2, NH2D, NHD2, C2H5D, etc). Excepting H2O, and the richer deuterides,. these are all going to reduce output in an inconsistent rate….
The most energetic fusion I’ve read about is D+T… as you climb the atomic numbers, you reduce the energy out of the reaction.
Unrefined should mostly cause dropouts and underpressure events.

 

[AlHazred]

I'm also loving the idea that some of the fuel tankage has removable covers, and can be used for either fuel (allowing J-3) or cargo (only J-2 but an extra 10 tons of cargo). It would be totally unexpected in a Scout ship. And if you, say, lined the covers, you could mask the contents from regular Customs inspection sensors.

What sorts of inconvenient or dangerous cargo could the previous crew (lazy and extremely amoral) have left there, that they couldn't easily transport with them when they decided to just dump a ship that had become more trouble than it was worth?

Now I just need to look through Scout/Courier deckplans to find one that I like the best... This one has a lot of possibilities, if I assume the Cargo Hold level has removable panels.

 

[Condottiere]

There is the option for fuel/cargo container.

Five percent extra volume and five thousand starbux per tonne.

 

[AlHazred]

Oooh...

So, I'd been thinking while the Highndry gets repaired and refitted, the Travellers will be at loose ends. To make ends meet while it's going on, the patron Scout will offer them a job filling in a Search and Rescue outfit on a three-month basis, allowing me to run the "Search and Rescue" adventure. "Search and Rescue" takes place in Gorram system, which is waaaay too far away, so I was always considering moving it.

If I move it to Nirton in District 268 (also an interdicted system), then I can cannibalize parts of Skandersvik... Interesting....

 

[AlHazred]

I felt bad for possibly derailing this thread, so I started a different thread for how I'll be using this design in my home game, here. My apologies.

 

[Grav_Moped]

I felt bad for possibly derailing this thread, so I started a different thread for how I'll be using this design in my home game, here. My apologies.

Tends to happen in my build threads. Usually it's arguments about house rules, so this was a pleasant change of pace.