General Collector Discussion

[AnotherDilbert]

Which means there's now a team of subject matter experts who know how Collectors work, and can probably replicate them if they can get the resources to do it.

Just because they have figured out how to change oil and make filters, does not mean they can manufacture an ICE.

Just because they have figured out how to change brake fluid and manufacture new pads does not mean they have learnt to make the battery pack for an electric car.

Annual maintenance isn't rebuilding the collector, or understanding how they work.

 

[robject]

And while I'm veering wildly between rules systems, I'll note that even though Collectors are back on the menu (say it with an Orcish accent: "looks like meat's back on the menu, boys!"), yet Marc did not put a Collector on any of the archetypal ships.

Yeah yeah, ok, it's because they are archetypes, and are intended to be relatively straightforward ports from CT et al.

But, it still says something about the uncommonness of Collectors, while also saying something about Marc wanting to bring in a version of the ANNIC NOVA.

 

[Grav_Moped]

No no, let's go there. Condottiere brings up an interesting question. Could the jump drives have something special about them? I mean, say they are clearly jump drives; however, maybe they're nonstandard. So they can be maintained, it's just that no-one has "ever seen one like this before".


As far as the canopy goes, it's not necessarily unique per Marc's writeup. It certainly is nonstandard, uncommon, exotic...

"Ooooh, a collector. I've heard about them; but I've never seen one of these with my own eyes. I hear they're manufactured on the other side of [referee inserts random plothook location]..."

GRANTED, the OTU abandons this trail from the start. But the adventure's intent is not to box the referee (or players) in.

It's important to note that the design wasn't broken with respect to the 1977 rules. And unless you can unplug the Canopy from the energy storage component, it doesn't break the game universe either using the original characteristics.

Extra energy from nowhere breaks things.
Refueling without having to expose yourself to possible contact because you don't have to recharge at a star's 100D limit breaks things.

Not needing fuel? If the alternative is worse than fuel-needing ships, and you still need to expose yourself to possible contact, it's probably tolerable.

The exponential drive thing wasn't in the original specs, so couldn't break anything. (Even then, it's similar to a precocious Hop Drive so it kind of fits into a T5 context.)

 

[robject]

Back-Porting to CT

If back-porting collector rules to CT, then the Canopy is replaceable at Starports TL14+. Presumably, maintenance could be done at any class A/B starport.

Collector + Hop?

Here's a thought that isn't fully analyzed: perhaps the Collector becomes more useful in combination with the Hop drive.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Power Systems capable of providing the energy that the drives need. The Power Plant is a fusion power system using Hydrogen as fuel. The High Tech Anti-Matter Plant is vastly more efficient. The exotic Collector requires greater time to recharge but is independent of specific fuels.

Collectors are included in T5, but so are Anti-matter plants and HEPlaR drives. None of them are necessarily known by the 3I.

All editions since TNE have included alternative tech, not part of the standard TU.

 

[robject]

It's important to note that the design wasn't broken with respect to the 1977 rules. And unless you can unplug the Canopy from the energy storage component, it doesn't break the game universe either using the original characteristics.

Ah yes, power in Traveller is tricky.

Remember, the Xboat had no power plant. (T5 has an apocrypha that includes a "self-powered" jump drive)

And the Scout and Patrol Ship could burn unrefined fuel at no penalty.

 

[robject]

Collectors are included in T5, but so are Anti-matter plants and HEPlaR drives. None of them are necessarily known by the 3I.

Antimatter needs a full discussion thread. Even though T5 doesn't have anything bad to say about antimatter, I think Marc has been coming down on it, suggesting that it is unstable. He mentions a ship with an antimatter power plant suffering just the right hit from a weapon... turning briefly into a little star. Catastrophic failure is an understatement.


...and yet, Darrians.


Oh here it is. This is probably the bit that bothers Marc:

For example, within a Mag Scrambler volume: Magnetic fields fluctuate chaotically; devices identified as Magnetic (requiring Skill= Magnetic) become non-functional; Magnetic closures, magnets, and electromagnets fail; Magnetic-based computer memory is non-functional (existing data is not pre- served when the Scrambler effect is removed); Magnetic- based anti-matter containment vessels suffer a catastrophic failure; Magnetic sensors detect wildly fluctuating magnetic values within the volume of the field; gauss weapons fail.

...unless there are non-magnetic-based anti-matter containment vessels...

 

[AnotherDilbert]

You can still carry both a anti-matter plant and a fusion plant, and you need to, to make the anti-matter. It can still be more efficient than carrying jump fuel.

A warship can simply shut down the anti-matter plant and eject the anti-matter before combat.

Basically you power the jump drive with anti-matter and the rest with lowly fusion.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Something like this:

TL-20  G-KU93                        Ergo 2   Comfort 4    Demand 0        Agility -1
       Frigate                       Total:           0         633        Stability 0
SYSTEM                                    #        DTON        COST      
                                                                         
Hull                                              1 000                  
                                                                         
Jump Field: Jump Bubble                                                    D=476 m, Flash 7
H Drive Q      H-3, 1500 EP               1          85         170      
Ult J Drive M  J-3, 1560 EP               1          16          49      
Ult M Drive E7  9 G, 4550 EP              1          16          95      
Ear A Plant S  A 3, 1530 EP               1          47         188      
Ult P Plant T2  P 9, 4680 EP              1          28          83      
                                                                         
Fuel, Power  4 weeks                                 63                  
Purifier                                  1           1           1      
Scoops                                    1           1           0

TL-20: Hop-3, Jump-3, Anti-matter-3 and Man-9, Fusion-9.
No hop/jump fuel required.

You still need a little hydrogen now and then for the fusion power plant.

 

[robject]

Quite right. You might not even need the jump drive, if it's enough to be able to "point" at your target planet.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Quite right. You might not even need the jump drive, if it's enough to be able to "point" at your target planet.

To do that you have to succeed on an astrogation roll for the full hop, i.e. 10D difficulty. Most astrogators will struggle to succeed all that often...

A jump drive is much easier to handle.

 

[robject]

To do that you have to succeed on an astrogation roll for the full hop, i.e. 10D difficulty. Most astrogators will struggle to succeed all that often...

A jump drive is much easier to handle.

And how... I think THIS requires its own separate discussion thread.

 

[Timerover51]

I have always treated the collector on the ANNIC NOVA as a controlled black globe field, with an extremely high energy conversion factor. However, I thought that the collector supplied basic power to the ship, charging the accumulators and operating the various ship systems. For Jump Drives, I assume that the ship is tapping a pocket universe for power, with the lag in jumps caused by the requirement to power up the control systems. This does anticipate the pocket universes of Grandfather, and makes the ship either an Artifact or a newer Droyne ship using technology let from the Ancients.

 

[Grav_Moped]

I have always treated the collector on the ANNIC NOVA as a controlled black globe field, with an extremely high energy conversion factor. However, I thought that the collector supplied basic power to the ship, charging the accumulators and operating the various ship systems. For Jump Drives, I assume that the ship is tapping a pocket universe for power, with the lag in jumps caused by the requirement to power up the control systems. This does anticipate the pocket universes of Grandfather, and makes the ship either an Artifact or a newer Droyne ship using technology let from the Ancients.

I considered that once. Then I realized it breaks space combat: it's a Black Globe that lets you radiate 100% of incoming energy and shoot back around the edges.

For that implementation, I thought it might just catch electromagnetic energy and particles (lasers, meson gun and part-acc, and non-contact hits from nukes) but would be vulnerable to kinetic weapons (missiles, limited damage from plasma/fusion guns). It wasn't originally meant as a power collector for jump drives, it was to protect the outer shell of a star-killing weapon.

Basically, a double-hulled ship with the black globe effect on the heavily-armored outer hull, and a small hole in that. The hole was backed up by incredibly powerful repulsors, and the ship had a massive meson spinal mount that fired through the hole. Drop it into a star, and use the star's own heat to power the meson gun that'll make it go boom (or at least fling coronal mass ejections in a desired direction until something overloads...)

Someone scavenged the shield generator and turned it into a power collection unit. It's hooked up to massive fusion guns that fire into the jump drives in place of those drives' fusion reactors doing the necessary power generation. This was done aeons ago, and its original use has been lost to time.

Again, this breaks space combat if anyone figures this out -- so I'm not using that interpretation. It makes for a nice story, though.

 

[robject]

And, it doesn't break the game you happen to be running. In other words, it's got a lot of neat plot hooks and angles on it to run with.

 

[Grav_Moped]

Racing!

Inspired by a post on the "What is this ship for?" thread:

Collector drives present opportunities for starship racing with outcomes not pre-determined by course-plotting software.

How fast do you dare deploy and fold the canopy? Does a brand new canopy give you a charge-rate advantage?

If you're using proto-collector (DA1) rules, skill in forcing jump exit just inside the 100D limit, or plotting your jump exit vector so as to cut a chord across the star's 100D limit radius to get closer during the recharge period, will also help. Then there's the idea of using an encapsulated collector (stow it in a grav-controlled bay when retracted) to allow flying into the 100D limit before deployment -- then, it becomes a matter of balancing the risk of overloading the collector against getting a really fast charge.

One thing that puzzles me about the MgT/T5 interpretation of Collectors is that while they work in deep space, there's no stated benefit from operating them in energy-dense regions near stars.

Other tricks could include using multiple collectors charged in parallel (2 Collector-1 drives each get a half-charge in 5 days; link them with a nexus and use the two half-charges to support a Jump-1.) Tech level makes a difference too. There will probably have to be one-design classes to keep this from being completely overwhelming.

 

[Grav_Moped]

From the "what's this ship for?" thread:

I started with this:
...
The interesting thing is that the Collector Canopy is entirely inside the spun ring, remaining stationary so it doesn't get centrifugal loading. There are elevator spokes alongside it to provide for access to the center hull (as well as a short-cut across the ring). There are also tram cars that run along both edges of the ring for fast point-to-point transit.

The canopy does not need to retract for Jump, as it's contained within the Jump field generated by the ring hull (this is a house rule, but it feels plausible). ...

Just thought about this again.

What happens when a deployed Collector canopy is within a Jump bubble?

For the '77 rules version, probably nothing. It's passive, and unless Jump Space radiates some weird energy through the jump bubble it's just going to sit there.

For the T5 and MgT rules version that gathers energy from space itself? That's kind of tricky. I'd guess folding it up grounds it to itself so it stops trying to "collect" energy. You really shouldn't be allowed to disconnect it from the "magic-particle tank" component of the Collector Drive for game-balance reasons (it becomes a potentially-interchangeable battery for the Jump Drive, but much smaller than the required fuel tankage). So leaving it open in Jumpspace -- setting aside the plausibility of a disc-shaped jump bubble -- means it's probably still trying to gather energy from vacuum.

The question then is, what does that do to the space inside the bubble? It could make it a harder vacuum, providing better insulation from Jump Space. Or, it could draw the bubble in and collapse it onto the hull and canopy. Oops.

 

[kilemall]

...unless there are non-magnetic-based anti-matter containment vessels...

How about gravitic containment, and the exotic particles mentioned for collection ARE contra-terrene?

And the exploded part of antimatter use is avoided by just needing to pick up a few at a time?

Would suggest a constant low level stream of the stuff that maybe is a temporary byproduct- NASA seems to think this happens in the Van Allen Belt, so plenty of opportunity to scoop some up. Certainly would explain the slow charging and since it would be used relatively quickly, a rather low order nuke.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Allen_radiation_belt#Antimatter_confinement

 

[Grav_Moped]

Natural, free-range antimatter?

I kinda like that idea. Not sure it's consistent with canon -- surely someone would have mentioned it by now if it was -- but it's not too difficult to shoehorn it in retroactively. The canopy creates a stand-off surface effect that attracts antimatter and channels it to the accumulator, where it's stored under gravitic containment.

This is different from T5 antimatter containment (probably far lower density, and not transferable from containment except into a Jump Drive; it can't be used to generate antimatter for use as a power supply).

But I need to give some thought to what it breaks in the rule system.

ETA: If it loses its charge over the course of a day while the canopy is folded, where would the antimatter be going, and how much damage would it do as it went there? It could kind of explain the canopy wear rate, but still...

ETA 2: It's not the canopy that's wearing out over time -- the containment system is eroding!

 

[Condottiere]

It's exotic particles, logic indicating the same ones that the hydrogen turns into once they are flushed through the jump drive turbines.

Which ones? I'm guessing the electron stripped down Mata Hari boson elementary particle.