far-trader
SOC-14 10K
No worries
We all love the game so passion is expected, we just have to remember we ALL love the game.Besides I need an excuse to splash a little friendly red bold moderator text in a thread now and then
Annic Nova in MgT
- Thread starter philabbot
- Start date
No worries
We all love the game so passion is expected, we just have to remember we ALL love the game.Besides I need an excuse to splash a little friendly red bold moderator text in a thread now and then
If not managed carefully, this is indeed the case.
Trivially easy: "it does, because I've seen the ANNIC NOVA, and that's how it works". (What, you expect me to live in the real world?)
I don't know what Collectors convert and store from stars, but whatever it is, it's converting it to energy at a rate proportional to the size (area?) of the canopy. A Type Q Collector is big enough to collect and store energy for a Jump-3 and Jump-2 drive on a 600 ton ship in about one week. It displaces 150 tons, and costs MCr 75. It is a TL 18 system.
A Collector is unsuitable as a routine energy supply (the mechanisms of the ship are powered by other sources); it only powers the Jump Drive. I am aware that this is an omission on the part of Double Adventure 1.
Some other tidbits that I know about Collectors:
The canopy is too fragile to be deployed under acceleration, and so must be stowed when the ship accelerates.
A deployed canopy requires about a week to become fully charged. Once fully charged, it remains so while deployed, and for about a day after being stowed.
A canopy degrades with use and rapidly degrades when abused. Thus I infer that the canopy on the ANNIC NOVA is perhaps over one year past its replacement date at the time of the adventure by that name.
Here is the design sheet:
Excursion Ship K2-C603 ANNIC NOVA MCr213.7 [unknown builder]
Using a cluster 600 ton frame and hull, this artifact is allowed in Imperial commerce under the salvage laws provided the ship is registered with Imperial authorities (typical registration fee: Cr 100,000).
The ship has two jump-drives (jump drive-F, and jump drive-J) which operate independently (at J-2 and J-3, respectively). There are no maneuver drives (the pinnaces working together may pull the ship at 0.6G); there is no power plant (subsystems are self-powered by integral Fusion+ modules). A Collector absorbs and collects energy for the jump drives. Two single turrets each mount a single beam laser. Cargo bays hold up to 150 tons. The computer is a non-standard model equivalent to a Model/3. The ship is not streamlined.
The ship has 8 staterooms (four single and four double) for the crew (pilot/astrogator, chief engineer, two ordinary engineers, and medic), with provision for ordinary members (gunners, pinnace pilots, or passengers). There are no low berths.
Two 40 ton pinnaces travel in trailing positions. Each holds 12 tons of fuel. One is equipped to carry four passengers for relatively long periods of time; the other can shuttle up to 16 passengers or 12 tons of cargo.
Actual volume: 549.5 tons
Code:
Tons TN Component MCr Notes
-------- -- --------------------------------- ------- --------------------
600 18 Cluster Hull, no lifters 16 C, no lifters
-6 18 No landing gear -6
0 18 AV=9. 1 Rad Organic 0
150 18 Collector-5 (Q) 75 5 C
17.5 18 Mod Jump Drive-2 (F) 17.5 J 2
25 15 Gen Jump Drive-3 (J) 25 J 3
0 18 AR Surf Communicator 1
1 19 AR Ant EMS 1.5
0 18 AR Surf HoloVisor 1
0 18 G Surf Deep Radar 0.1
0 18 G Surf Proximeter 0.1
2 15 Vd T1 Beam Laser (2) 1.4 #2
6 21 Computer Model/3 flu 21
20 20 Spacious bridge 0
16 18 Hydroponic Garden (4) 1.6 #4 provides food + LS
16 18 Crew Single Stateroom (4) 2 #4 1 crew
16 18 Crew Double Stateroom (4) 2 #4 2 crew
20 18 Crew Lounge (5) 2.5 #5
10 18 Machine Shop 0
5 18 Electronics Shop 0
5 18 Metallurgical Shop 0
150 18 Cargo Hold Basic 0
80 15 Pinnace (2) 36 #2
16 18 Grapples (8) 16 #8 2 per 35t
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No, Rob, you haven't, any more than you've seen a world with a diameter of 1000 miles retain enough oxygen to make a breathable atmosphere. The article about the Annic Nova is fiction, not fact.
No, but I expect you to stick to the rules of the fictional universe that you're working with. One of which, as far as I know, is that you can't get more energy out of solar collectors than is put into them by the light that strikes them.
And how much is that? That's the crux of the matter. If the amount is so small that something much smaller and less fuel-demanding than a 36T fusion power plant can provide it, sensible ship design becomes radically different than what we know.
Indeed, just the ability to provide the necessary power over one full week instead of in 40 minutes makes a huge difference. (also, a small on-board power plant that can fill the storage cells while the ship is in jump would obviate the need for messing about with solar collectors at all.)
Evidently not, since the PCs are able to register it with the Imperium for Cr100,000 and be allowed to go their merry way without having the ship confiscated for study and (attempted) reverse-engineering.
If a full charge is able to power two jumps in succession, at least 60% of the energy can be stored for at least a bit over 8 days.
Hans
Your first point is a good one, but obviously the non-canon-destroying answer is that the canopy gathers and manages energy in a way that power plants cannot. As a counter-example, they're not like black globes, which (apparently) if you fire at them you can charge the jump capacitors. Nor are they simply batteries that you could trickle-charge with a little powerplant.
Your second point is an excellent one. Sounds like potential must bleed off over time, so there's significant charge left after a week. Maybe the buss-bar charge has a half-life?
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Energy is energy, Rob. Sure, you can postulate yet another handwavium storage device (because we sorely need another one in the TU), but gathering is a different matter. You put in energy here and it is collected by a storage device. How you collected it can't possibly be relevant to how you store it. (Not to mention that the fact that you fold the canopy before the first jump implies that the energy isn't stored in the canopy itself). I can't imagine that the two parts of the canopy, the gathering and the storing, are inextricably linked. That's just too much of a contrievance to get past my belef suspenders. Indeed, at the risk of being too coarse for polite conversation, it won't even get past my crap detector. I hope you'll forgive me for being blunt.
Why not? If you can trickle-charge them with a solar collector, why can't you trickle-charge them with a little powerplant?
* The light strikes the collector, it gets converted to electricity, the electricity flows through a wire, it winds up in a storage device.
* The power plant creates electricity, the electricity flows through a wire, it winds up in a storage device.
* The power plant creates electricity, the electricity flows through a wire, it winds up in a storage device.
What is it about the electricity collected from solar power that distinguishes it from electricity that is produced by a power plant? Electricity is electricity. It doesn't come with a tag that says "suitable for storing in MagiTech Storage Devices" or "unsuitable for storing in MagiTech Storage Devices".
I'm sorry, I don't understand this at all.
Hans
My side of the discussion is just about how collectors could interact with the OTU without destroying it. I won't argue whether or not they exist or should exist in the OTU, because I'm not qualified in going over that, it's not my decision, and besides, I like them.
You're assuming a lot. If you hook up a DC power source to your home current, you may experience interesting problems. If you hook up an AC power source to your home current without matching phase with the power company, you will trip breakers, or something like that, right? If your PV panels don't have rectifiers to protect them, what happens when the battery bank discharges on a cloudy day? So, what's the TL 15 equivalent of "AC phase", "DC versus AC" and "Diodes"?
No, I don't really want to go there. Just pointing out that how you generate it can be relevant to how you store it, in a way.
And yet, Double Adventure 1 coupled with the OTU requires that said storage is neither standard nor decouple-able.
That makes my point, as well. It must not be just like a solar collector plus a plain old battery bank, because the implication is as you say. I don't know what it's doing, but I do know that it's doing it in a way that
(1) can't be replicated by a trickle-charge from a power plant
(2) can't gather energy from something other than a star
(3) doesn't break the OTU powerplant-jump drive relationship
#1 and #2 are nightmare OTU-busters. Imagine a power plant slow-charging jump batteries. Ships no longer need star systems to refuel. There are no strategic bottlenecks (precious few are there as it is). The Rift is not a bottleneck.
#3 sort of hints at a way out: the collector is a powerplant replacement. The implication there is that the jump drives in the ANNIC NOVA are nothing special: their capacitors aren't super-ultra-long-lasting. Marc contends that, except for Collectors, the ANNIC NOVA is mainly a known-tech design, even going so far as using Imperial parts in many cases (the pinnaces are designed on Imperial templates, even if lightly modified) -- which is not what my design was.
Anyway, making the collectors the magitech does three things -- it makes collectors exotic (which is exactly what they are), it makes them useful to "ordinary" designs, and doesn't posit OTU-breaking jump capacitors with weeks-long holding capacity.
The implication there is that whatever the powerplant does to initiate a jump -- generate a pile of energy in a very short period of time -- is what the collector does to initiate a jump. Could this mean the canopy is collecting and storing reaction mass of some kind? Maybe. I don't know. Even the reason you cite (i.e. storing an electric charge) doesn't necessarily imply that that energy can be input from a different source, in a different way.
You're assuming a lot. If you hook up a DC power source to your home current, you may experience interesting problems. If you hook up an AC power source to your home current without matching phase with the power company, you will trip breakers, or something like that, right? If your PV panels don't have rectifiers to protect them, what happens when the battery bank discharges on a cloudy day? So, what's the TL 15 equivalent of "AC phase", "DC versus AC" and "Diodes"?
No, I don't really want to go there. Just pointing out that how you generate it can be relevant to how you store it, in a way.
And yet, Double Adventure 1 coupled with the OTU requires that said storage is neither standard nor decouple-able.
That makes my point, as well. It must not be just like a solar collector plus a plain old battery bank, because the implication is as you say. I don't know what it's doing, but I do know that it's doing it in a way that
(1) can't be replicated by a trickle-charge from a power plant
(2) can't gather energy from something other than a star
(3) doesn't break the OTU powerplant-jump drive relationship
#1 and #2 are nightmare OTU-busters. Imagine a power plant slow-charging jump batteries. Ships no longer need star systems to refuel. There are no strategic bottlenecks (precious few are there as it is). The Rift is not a bottleneck.
#3 sort of hints at a way out: the collector is a powerplant replacement. The implication there is that the jump drives in the ANNIC NOVA are nothing special: their capacitors aren't super-ultra-long-lasting. Marc contends that, except for Collectors, the ANNIC NOVA is mainly a known-tech design, even going so far as using Imperial parts in many cases (the pinnaces are designed on Imperial templates, even if lightly modified) -- which is not what my design was.
Anyway, making the collectors the magitech does three things -- it makes collectors exotic (which is exactly what they are), it makes them useful to "ordinary" designs, and doesn't posit OTU-breaking jump capacitors with weeks-long holding capacity.
The implication there is that whatever the powerplant does to initiate a jump -- generate a pile of energy in a very short period of time -- is what the collector does to initiate a jump. Could this mean the canopy is collecting and storing reaction mass of some kind? Maybe. I don't know. Even the reason you cite (i.e. storing an electric charge) doesn't necessarily imply that that energy can be input from a different source, in a different way.
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mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Rob.
There's always the possibility that jump drives aren't electrically powered. Energy most definitely is not energy, energy exists in many forms and it is the transfer of energy that does work. That energy can be electromagnetic, gravitic, kinetic etc.
Just because Traveller power plants generate electricity for most of the systems aboard a ship does not mean that it is electrical energy that powers grav plates, acceleration compensators or jump drives. It may be that electricity has to be converted into graviticity and perhaps this is what the solar array and trickle charge accumulator is actually collecting.
No, I don't like introducing something as stupid, but I have no other way to explain how fusion products become electricity become artificial gravty and jump potential.
Our current level of physics is only just showing that the Higgs field can be proven by the existence of Higgs particles, we have a way to go before we can actually manipulate mass and gravity.
There's always the possibility that jump drives aren't electrically powered. Energy most definitely is not energy, energy exists in many forms and it is the transfer of energy that does work. That energy can be electromagnetic, gravitic, kinetic etc.
Just because Traveller power plants generate electricity for most of the systems aboard a ship does not mean that it is electrical energy that powers grav plates, acceleration compensators or jump drives. It may be that electricity has to be converted into graviticity and perhaps this is what the solar array and trickle charge accumulator is actually collecting.
No, I don't like introducing something as stupid, but I have no other way to explain how fusion products become electricity become artificial gravty and jump potential.
Our current level of physics is only just showing that the Higgs field can be proven by the existence of Higgs particles, we have a way to go before we can actually manipulate mass and gravity.
My problem is that a lack of consistency destroys something for me.
Not really. What it requires is another explanation for the Annic Nova. One that is actually self-consistent.
Explanations that doesn't actually explain anything doesn't really work for me. "It's magic" just doesn't cut it.
"The jump drive must be powered by blue electricity on even dates and by red electricity on odd dates, unless the date is a prime number, in which case it must be powered by yellow electricity. Blue electricity is gathered when going clockwise around the sun, red electricity is gathered while going counter-clockwise, and yellow is collected when remaining still."
"How the %¤#" does that work?!?"
"Simple. Blue, red, and yellow are the three primary colors."
"How the %¤#" does that work?!?"
"Simple. Blue, red, and yellow are the three primary colors."
Admittedly you sometimes can't avoid "it's magic", but in the case of the Annic Nova, you can. Even if the only way would be to retcon it out of existence it would be better than introducing inexplicable and inconsistent hyper-tech, but I don't think it is the only way. As I've said before, just make it a TL15 ship built around an Ancient device (my suggestion is a pocket universe fuel source). The Ancient's technology is allowed to be magic. That's what they're for. Besides, pocket universes are self-consistent magic.
Hans
The past coming back to haunt Robert ;-)
I was just browsing through old threads about the Annic Nova and stumbled across these words of praise from my esteemed opponent:
And here's the post that caused this effusive expression of admiration (Modesty compels me to point out that a major part of the notion came from someone else):
I think I will leave the quotes to speak for themselves. :rofl:
Hans
I was just browsing through old threads about the Annic Nova and stumbled across these words of praise from my esteemed opponent:
And here's the post that caused this effusive expression of admiration (Modesty compels me to point out that a major part of the notion came from someone else):
me said:
I think I will leave the quotes to speak for themselves.
:rofl:Hans
It is a tidy way to wrap it up, and canonically. And that setup would make a decent adventure.
Alternate solutions are always a good thing. That's part of generating ideas for Traveller.
Collectors are more interesting as an alternate technology, though. I understand that your suspenders can't hold up under the strain of them.
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I completely overlooked that this isn't the actual problem. The problem is not a TL18 collector that can collect and store energy over several weeks. You can make such collectors today. The problem is a TL15 or less jump drive that only needs as much power as can be collected by the Annic Nova's solar collectors in a week to power it. Such a jump drive would not need a thumping great special fusion plant and many tons of hydrogen to provide the amount of energy it needs even if there only were 40 minutes to provide it. An ordinary fusion plant would be able to do it.
The assumption that all the jump fuel is used to provide nothing but energy has always been iffy[*], but at least the claim that the jump drive needed an unspecified but thumping great amount of energy real fast made it sort of not completely implausible. Once you know that the amount of energy is as low as the solar collector story implies, it becomes ludicrous.
[*] The fanon attempts to come up with alternate uses for the jump fuel was caused by this iffiness.
Now, if you make both those low-energy jump drives TL18 too, the problem is solved[*].
[*] Except the problem with the article stating that the Annic Nova can be registered with the Imperial authorities without being confiscated.
But I still think Marc Miller should seriously reconsider his take that all the fuel is used for energy generation. (And using hydrogen for coolant is flat out stupid. Hydrogen has a very low heat storage capacity (?) compared to oxygen and water).
It may help change his mind to point out that the rule that allows a ship to jump with capacitors filled by energy collected by a black globe requires that the ship ALSO has the requisite jump fuel. Capacitors are filled by the power plant in 20 to 40 minutes (presumably using power plant fuel) and then the jump drive uses jump fuel to do its thing, whatever that may be. Filling the capacitors in other ways, like the Annic Nova does, should not obviate the need for jump fuel as long as the same principles are involved.
Hans
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ToddBradley
SOC-1
What makes you think those are solar collectors? The original module (which is all I have to refer to) calls them "stellar collectors." Likewise, the canopy isn't referred to as a photovoltaic grid or a solar sail, but as "radiation-absorbent film." My assumption is they are collecting radiation of a kind our puny TL 8 minds don't know yet. Maybe they convert gravitons to electrons. Maybe they collect dark energy.
And the reason the Imperial officials don't just confiscate this awesome technology is that the bureaucrats didn't bother to do the math to realize the sail can't possibly be a photon collector, but is something much more advanced. The computer's obviously a piece of crap, so who would expect the power system to be a marvel?
DaddyDragon
SOC-12
That would have been my take on it as well. Though unknown at the time of the original printing of the article, this could be easily attributed to the various dark matter/energy theories in current scientific debates.
An unknown, unidentified energy particle is captured. It is stored and it fulfills all of the other canon requirements for jump drive operations, without being hydrogen. A deus ex machina particle.
The fact that they collect energy from suns.
Anyone who noticed that the ship didn't have any jump fuel tankage for a start.
I was going to add something sarcastic about how easy that would be to overlook, but I've been told that I ought to cut down on my sarcasm.
Hans
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mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Pretty much my take on it too.
In CT the jump drive was described as having a fast burning fusion reactor as part of its system and didn't need a separate power plant.
It could be explained that it requires this fast fusion reaction to create the "jump potential" particles.
The Annic Nova's stellar collector collects these particles directly from the star and stores them in its accumulator. It is not collecting photons - it is collecting jump potential energy. Which is why it is not described as a solar cell.
Moving the ship paradigm to jump drives requiring a power plant - the jump drive still requires a massive amount of fuel so the fast burn "jump potential" particle generation is still required.
The Imperium has probably come across the Annic Nova's technology before - but it is more expensive and less efficient than the fusion method used throughout the Imperium.
GypsyComet
SOC-14 1K
Posit: The use of a lot of energy to rip open the path to jumpspace is the easily discovered way. There are others, but this is the way all six major races found.
Posit: This way also calls for very quick energy delivery to the drive, which has technological ramifications all the way through the process, from quality of fuel to burn rate of the powerplant, transmission of that power to an even faster delivery capacitor system, and the projection characteristics of the field generator.
Posit: The Annic Nova builders stumbled over a different way. It may be a way that is known to Imperial science but is considered suboptimal compared to the fast fusion method, and it may have limitations that don't allow it to be hybridized with the fast fusion method. This *is* Weird Science we are talking about, so odd incompatibilities are not out of character.
Posit: This way also calls for very quick energy delivery to the drive, which has technological ramifications all the way through the process, from quality of fuel to burn rate of the powerplant, transmission of that power to an even faster delivery capacitor system, and the projection characteristics of the field generator.
Posit: The Annic Nova builders stumbled over a different way. It may be a way that is known to Imperial science but is considered suboptimal compared to the fast fusion method, and it may have limitations that don't allow it to be hybridized with the fast fusion method. This *is* Weird Science we are talking about, so odd incompatibilities are not out of character.
not completely true, there, Mike. CT 1e didn't, but 2e did. As did HG.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Which is why I continued with when the paradigm shifted to...
Annic Nova was originally designed before the revision of CT or HG changed the drive paradigm. Even after the revision the good folks at DGP still mention in the SOM that the jump drive still has its own fast burning fusion reactor as part of its system.
My theory is that this fast burning reaction is what is needed to generate the jump potential, something that the slow fusion of the regular reactor doesn't/can't do. A star produces the same energy/particles as the fast burning reactor for the Annic Nova collector to gather. A slow fusion reactor, fission reactor, solar cell array whatever can not generate the exotic energy/particles the jump drive needs.
Annic Nova was originally designed before the revision of CT or HG changed the drive paradigm. Even after the revision the good folks at DGP still mention in the SOM that the jump drive still has its own fast burning fusion reactor as part of its system.
My theory is that this fast burning reaction is what is needed to generate the jump potential, something that the slow fusion of the regular reactor doesn't/can't do. A star produces the same energy/particles as the fast burning reactor for the Annic Nova collector to gather. A slow fusion reactor, fission reactor, solar cell array whatever can not generate the exotic energy/particles the jump drive needs.
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SOM ignores CT 2E changes to the paradigm... because it is for MT, and in MT there's no PP requirement for the jump drive.Which is why I continued with when the paradigm shifted to...
Annic Nova was originally designed before the revision of CT or HG changed the drive paradigm. Even after the revision the good folks at DGP still mention in the SOM that the jump drive still has its own fast burning fusion reactor as part of its system.
