Since it's currently split over two threads, here's a place to discuss how collectors work in various rulesets.
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General Collector Discussion
- Thread starter Grav_Moped
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From the yacht contest thread:
AN already throws away the fuel requirement. The rest is just quibbling about the details.
Didn't have to be waived, it's just extremely fuel efficient because it's "cheating" (different "fuel rule" rule mechanic). 20% for one drive, 30% for the other, and you get J8 or J9 out of that 50% total.
AN already throws away the fuel requirement. The rest is just quibbling about the details.
Interesting. Instead of retconning ANNIC NOVA to conform to T5 (and/or MgT), treating them as two distinct technologies... I like that.
I think the reason for the latter being able to work in deep space is that as-written, it turns out that AN's collector canopy can't intercept enough stellar radiation to support the stated power needed for Jump, even at 100% conversion efficiency. It takes a flaw (can't work as written) and turns it into a feature (it's not broken -- it just extracts energy from nowhere). The alternative is that it has super-efficient jump drives that don't need as much power, but it can't be that because the text states that they're super-ordinary. They're regular standard jump drives despite having a unique power source that should have required the drives to be significantly modified.
Solar irradiance is about 1380W/m2 here at Earth's orbital distance.
ANNIC NOVA has a 1km diameter canopy.
This intercepts 1083MW, or 4.33EP at perfect conversion efficiency.That's about 13 EP per hour, 312 EP per day, or 2184 EP/week.
If it all went into jump capacitors (or something with equal energy density), it'd take 60.7Td of them to hold a week of collected solar energy.
To fire both jump drives at once (or one at J3 and then one at J2, without recharging) takes 540 EP. (It takes about 42 hours to collect this.)
This is within the energy budget, so it's not impossible if the ship doesn't need a powerplant at all during Jump as with the 1977 rules. (I'll come back to this.)
It requires the energy storage to be able to discharge those 540EP like it was a Pn-45 for two turns, which jump capacitors can do but batteries probably shouldn't.
That's probably game-breaking unless there's some other limitation on batteries.
The limit is that it's not a battery, but some way to store energy that isn't electrical. (Technobabble: "It's like a very short range meson gun but for muons. Artisanally gathered, free-range muons, not those factory-fused ones you get from a jump drive reactor. Takes a week to get enough muons, and get them all up to the right speed. Then you fire it into the jump drive, and boing -- you're in jumpspace." "They can stay at a high energy state for weeks once you get them synchronized and set up a standing wave.")
Why muons? I vaguely remember someone saying that they're the magic particles needed for Jump. If they aren't, substitute the official technobabble term.
Yes, I know meson guns can't work they way canon says they do. I'm pretending I don't.
And yes, I'm implying that these are hipster vegan organic low-carb gluten-free independent-label muons that empower your journey of self-discovery. They're pretty obscure -- you wouldn't have heard of them.
I think the reason for the latter being able to work in deep space is that as-written, it turns out that AN's collector canopy can't intercept enough stellar radiation to support the stated power needed for Jump, even at 100% conversion efficiency. It takes a flaw (can't work as written) and turns it into a feature (it's not broken -- it just extracts energy from nowhere). The alternative is that it has super-efficient jump drives that don't need as much power, but it can't be that because the text states that they're super-ordinary. They're regular standard jump drives despite having a unique power source that should have required the drives to be significantly modified.
Solar irradiance is about 1380W/m2 here at Earth's orbital distance.
ANNIC NOVA has a 1km diameter canopy.
This intercepts 1083MW, or 4.33EP at perfect conversion efficiency.That's about 13 EP per hour, 312 EP per day, or 2184 EP/week.
If it all went into jump capacitors (or something with equal energy density), it'd take 60.7Td of them to hold a week of collected solar energy.
To fire both jump drives at once (or one at J3 and then one at J2, without recharging) takes 540 EP. (It takes about 42 hours to collect this.)
This is within the energy budget, so it's not impossible if the ship doesn't need a powerplant at all during Jump as with the 1977 rules. (I'll come back to this.)
It requires the energy storage to be able to discharge those 540EP like it was a Pn-45 for two turns, which jump capacitors can do but batteries probably shouldn't.
That's probably game-breaking unless there's some other limitation on batteries.
The limit is that it's not a battery, but some way to store energy that isn't electrical. (Technobabble: "It's like a very short range meson gun but for muons. Artisanally gathered, free-range muons, not those factory-fused ones you get from a jump drive reactor. Takes a week to get enough muons, and get them all up to the right speed. Then you fire it into the jump drive, and boing -- you're in jumpspace." "They can stay at a high energy state for weeks once you get them synchronized and set up a standing wave.")
Why muons? I vaguely remember someone saying that they're the magic particles needed for Jump. If they aren't, substitute the official technobabble term.
Yes, I know meson guns can't work they way canon says they do. I'm pretending I don't.
And yes, I'm implying that these are hipster vegan organic low-carb gluten-free independent-label muons that empower your journey of self-discovery. They're pretty obscure -- you wouldn't have heard of them.
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Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
Maybe other editions have a different way Collector powered jump drives work.
As far as I can tell from the MongoVerse version, the Collectors are available at technological level fourteen, and can be linearly scaled to potentialize any factor jump drive, without any mention of deterioration.
A separate jump drive has to be present, and must be independently energized.
So basically, you could spread those solar panellings and accumulate the requisite power points in batteries.
As far as I can tell from the MongoVerse version, the Collectors are available at technological level fourteen, and can be linearly scaled to potentialize any factor jump drive, without any mention of deterioration.
A separate jump drive has to be present, and must be independently energized.
So basically, you could spread those solar panellings and accumulate the requisite power points in batteries.
An improvement on the technobabble: It stores most of the power as high-energy muons "like a flywheel, but it's muons" (no, particle physics doesn't work that way either, but once again I'm pretending I don't know this). These are exactly what a Jump Drive needs to do its thing, so they're very efficient at powering it during jump initiation and jump field sustainment. You can't feed an ordinary power plant with them, and a Collector is the only way to gather them -- you can't use the same process to harvest and store them from a Jump Drive doing its fast-burn reaction.
The energy not stored as high-energy muons is stored in batteries with very low discharge capability. Energy density is similar to that of a power plant and its 1-month fuel allocation. Discharge is at Pn-1 rates. This covers basic ship power, but nothing requiring (LBB5) energy points.
From the Yacht Thread:
And that's one of the obstacles to reconciling it to the rules. As-is, it has to be TL 15 or lower, and no more efficient than canon technology (otherwise, you don't get it back at the end of the scenario).
It could have been much higher TL way back when, but as presented there can't be anything higher than TL 15 on board.
And that's one of the obstacles to reconciling it to the rules. As-is, it has to be TL 15 or lower, and no more efficient than canon technology (otherwise, you don't get it back at the end of the scenario).
It could have been much higher TL way back when, but as presented there can't be anything higher than TL 15 on board.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
I wish people would go back and read the original Annic Nova adventure in JTAS 1.
It was not a unique ship, at the end of the article are several suggestions of how Annic Nova class/type ships can turn up elsewhere...
It was not a unique ship, at the end of the article are several suggestions of how Annic Nova class/type ships can turn up elsewhere...
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
1. The real issue with the Collector technology is that it completely changes the military picture in Traveller.
2. First off, gas giants and refuelling no longer pose a potential bottleneck.
3. Next, I'm pretty sure the intelligence agencies would be using it for cross border clandestine missions.
4. If it's in general circulation, when and where was it actually invented and manufactured?
2. First off, gas giants and refuelling no longer pose a potential bottleneck.
3. Next, I'm pretty sure the intelligence agencies would be using it for cross border clandestine missions.
4. If it's in general circulation, when and where was it actually invented and manufactured?
AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 1K
Nothing suggests the ship is common, preceding the part you quoted are:
It just suggests other ways to introduce the same unique ship.
It's self-evidently not unique, based on its "name":
it's a registration number, and a very long one at that.
A collector powered ship, even with DA1 characteristics, is a really lousy pirate ship. Trying to use it as one also implies there is a repair base very close by (wherever it happens to be) because the canopy's going to get shredded by any starship weapon hit.
If it's wrecked on a world, you're unlikely to find anything salvageable after impact. You probably won't even find anything immediately recognizable as a starship. Think about how it would have gotten there...
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Let's see what happens if you try it with 1980-81 assumptions (Pn=Jn requirement).
Pn-1 for a 600Td ship is 6EP. This is a problem -- we've already established that the physical limit to the maximum power from the canopy at Earth's orbit is only 4.33 EP. It's not insurmountable yet, though. Stats from DA1 allowed for up to six weeks of charging, depending on distance and stellar characteristics. If the case of "Sol at Earth Orbit" is the median (3.5 weeks to charge), charging could be at up to 3.5 times that 4.33EP (i.e., 15EP) -- that's Pn-2.5. We're close, but there's still a shortfall for Jump-3. A single Jump-3 at that, not a Jump-3 and a subsequent Jump-2 as specified in DA1. And absolutely not 2 months of PN=Jn. TCS power-down rules bring minimum power outside of Jump down to PN=1, but that doesn't help enough. Alas, it really is insurmountable.
The 1980 and later requirement of Pn=Jn breaks the ANNIC NOVA as presented in the Double Adventure, even before figuring out how to store the required energy.
I'm pretty sure that's where they got the idea for collectors being able to work in deep space. If they can't get enough energy from a star, then they must be getting energy from "somewhere else" and don't need a star at all.
The alternative is to revert to something like 1977 rules (no power plant required for the jump drive if you're using Collectors). MgT and T5 do that, mostly (and MgT generalizes it to all jump drives if I'm reading it right).
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The way to make it work is to assume '77 rules (no power plant needed) for Collectors, because they somehow also do something for Jump Drives while in jump that keeps the jump bubble from collapsing. Perhaps releasing a slow trickle of high-energy muons that you'd otherwise need the regular power plant at Pn=Jn to provide? But that's just technobabble; the point is that it does what a power plant at that power level would do without putting out that power level.
It still leaves the question open as to where the baseline Pn-1 power the rulesets still require comes from. MgT and T5 do it with a power plant. Using the International Space Station as an example, Traveller's idea of baseline power is vastly higher than needed for just environmental control and lighting. Without artificial gravity, it could be done easily with batteries and solar panels (The ISS uses 102Kw for its 68Td of pressurized volume.)
DA1 Annic Nova handwaves this (but then, the '77 rules did too).
In later rule sets, spin gravity could be a good low-power alternative. Smaller ships would put part of the bridge and living quarters out on a tether and swing that around the main hull, counterbalanced by the Jump Drive, battery, and accumulator for the Collector. (Note that these components would need to be isolated from the Collector Canopy as a counterweight, otherwise the spun section would impose excessive G loading on the canopy.) Larger ones would have the living quarters in a spun ring, as with the canon Type L Lab Ship.
I think I'll write up something along these lines in a T5/CT quick-design just as a proof of concept.
It still leaves the question open as to where the baseline Pn-1 power the rulesets still require comes from. MgT and T5 do it with a power plant. Using the International Space Station as an example, Traveller's idea of baseline power is vastly higher than needed for just environmental control and lighting. Without artificial gravity, it could be done easily with batteries and solar panels (The ISS uses 102Kw for its 68Td of pressurized volume.)
DA1 Annic Nova handwaves this (but then, the '77 rules did too).
In later rule sets, spin gravity could be a good low-power alternative. Smaller ships would put part of the bridge and living quarters out on a tether and swing that around the main hull, counterbalanced by the Jump Drive, battery, and accumulator for the Collector. (Note that these components would need to be isolated from the Collector Canopy as a counterweight, otherwise the spun section would impose excessive G loading on the canopy.) Larger ones would have the living quarters in a spun ring, as with the canon Type L Lab Ship.
I think I'll write up something along these lines in a T5/CT quick-design just as a proof of concept.
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AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 1K
MgT2 has all of those components defined in the system.
But MgT doesn't give credit for the hamster cage pseudo-grav eliminating the power draw of artificial gravity.
Also, I'm not sure it adequately describes swinging a small habitation pod around the main hull, but it might be in the ballpark.
I'm pretty sure you could run basic life support (climate control and air scrubbers, and things like refrigeration and cooking, but not artificial gravity) from thermocouples connected to the Jump Drive's heat sinks. Based on the International Space Station's wattage per pressurized m3, basic life support takes about 1500w per Traveller ton.
If so, batteries are only needed for time spent recharging the collectors in deep space (charging near a star allows use of solar panels and battery charging), and to store enough energy to spin the habitation pod up once (maybe twice to account for regenerative braking and friction losses over several spin-ups).
If a collector is being used, it has to both be non-spun and anchored to the ship at the barycenter of the ship/pod unit (which will shift as the pod is reeled out on its 15m+ tether) on the unit's rotational axis.
The spin-up system will require a counter-rotating flywheel driven by electric motors to impart rotation to the habitation pod without spinning the main hull. On spin-down/pod retraction, the flywheel absorbs the rotational energy of the pod through regenerative braking. No additional power is needed to maintain "gravity" in the pod once it's been spun up to about 1RPM (I think that's right for the rotation rate...)
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
You do get the option of a cheaper hull, and might be able to prioritize life support at below one power point basic draw per ten tonnes.
AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 1K
A lot simpler house-rule than mixing CT and T5 and papering over the cracks?
Sure, but it's still a house rule either way. Once you're away from black-letter rules as written, the best you can do is approximate the rules' intent. And the problem is that the intent is dramatic or balanced gameplay, not realism.
The main problem is that CT (in HG where it actually counts it) spacecraft rules don't even allow you to generate less than 83MW (1/3 EP: 1Td of TL 7-8 power plant) or consume less than 125MW (1/2 EP: 1Td of maneuver drive at 1G). Or rather, if you need less than that you're still paying for and fueling the higher amount. And basic life support is about 0.1% of that per 100Td, give or take.
MgT subdivides things into smaller increments, but still incorporates the assumption of artificial gravity into its parameters to raise the energy cost.
And, specifically, there's nothing in there that describes the spin-up/spin down energy costs. For a toroidal/dual toroidal craft, it's a non-issue since there's little need to de-spin the hull in circumstances where power isn't available.
In an edge case (I'm writing up a 100Td ship with maybe a 2-man crew, so the gravity-pod would be 2 staterooms plus 2 tons of the bridge, for 10Td total) I could believe a 1/5 EP spin-up cost. It's accelerating 10Td to 1G by playing "crack the whip" (wikipedia) with the tether cable. Might be slightly different since it's also doing this while slinging 75Td of the rest of the ship (excluding the canopy) as a counterbalance, and applying reverse rotational torque to at least part of that. Complex, but I'm trying for realism or at least plausibility and the actual math is more than I want to get into.
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I suggested this to Marc some years back. Borders are now completely porous and impossible to guard. Your assault squadrons could sail effortlessly straight to Rhylanor or Zhodane or Capital (or ...) and bomb it back to the Stone Age.
Your Virus-laden ships can tromp straight across the Rift, and voila', no Domain of Deneb.
Etc.
The way I think those discussions went, is that Collectors aren't great.
They ARE quite nifty, but they are edge-case technologies. Good for recon and scouting. Bad for actual combatants, because you'd still need a power plant and fuel.
Something along those lines.
Still not sure what stopped Virus though.
...Come to think of it, I suspect Marc was thinking that Collectors must be able to work regardless of star proximity, if only because it makes the ANNIC NOVA's trip from the Solomani Sphere to the Domain of Deneb more like a straight-line course.
...Which might imply that their homeworld is on the other side of Zhodani space...
MgT power points are 1/67 of a CT Energy Point (approximately), or 3.7MW.
