HG2 Black Globe and jump drive capacitors

[snrdg082102]

Evening all,

From HG2 page 42:

A ship without additional capacitors installed has capacitors (for the jump drive) equal to 0.5%MJn.

60,000 ton hull with a J-5 drive

0.5% x 60,000 x 4 = 300 x 5 = 1,500

Does the 1,500 signify tons or EP?

 

[Carlobrand]

Evening all,

From HG2 page 42:

A ship without additional capacitors installed has capacitors (for the jump drive) equal to 0.5%MJn.

60,000 ton hull with a J-5 drive

0.5% x 60,000 x 4 = 300 x 5 = 1,500

Does the 1,500 signify tons or EP?

High Guard 2, in the construction section, under screens: "The capacitors contained in the ship's jump drive may be used to store this energy; additional capacitors may also be purchased. The jump drive capacitors mass .5% of the ship's mass, per jump number; for example, a drive capable of jump3 will include capacitors equal to 1.5% of the ship's mass. Additional capacitors may be purchased at MCr4.0 per ton. One ton of capacitors (in a jump drive or not) will hold 36 EPs."

So, 60,000 ton hull with a J-5 drive: 0.5% x 60,000 x 5 = 300 x 5 = 1,500 dTons of capacitors. 1,500 tons of capacitors can hold 54,000 EP. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, a Power Plant-5 for a 60,000 ton hull generates 3000 EP/turn, so you'd only need 6000 EP to make a jump-5. If you happen to be using a black globe and accumulating power for jump, you don't have to worry about going over and seeing your ship destroyed at 6001 EP - your capacitors hold a fair amount over what's needed for the jump.

Here's another interesting thought: for the 100 dT jump-2 scout, with it's 3 dTon jump drive, a third of that drive - and a third of the drive's cost - is that capacitor.

 

[McPerth]

This 60 kdton with jump 5 capacity would have a JD of 60000*6%=3600 dton, so the 1500 dton of capacitors mean a 41.66... % of the JD is capacitors, even more than your calculations for the Scout ship...

And yet another interesting thought: if this ship needs 6000 ep to jump, why do the jump capacitors (without installing aditional ones) have a capacity nine times that?

It will have them even in it had no black globe, and, IMHO, thats quite a large security margin...

 

[atpollard]

This 60 kdton with jump 5 capacity would have a JD of 60000*6%=3600 dton, so the 1500 dton of capacitors mean a 41.66... % of the JD is capacitors, even more than your calculations for the Scout ship...

And yet another interesting thought: if this ship needs 6000 ep to jump, why do the jump capacitors (without installing aditional ones) have a capacity nine times that?

It will have them even in it had no black globe, and, IMHO, thats quite a large security margin...

[Just an idea, no rules support that I know of ...]

You may be thinking about that backwards. The ship may need 54,000 EP to jump, but for safety reasons always maintains its jump capacitors at 6000 EP below rated capacity until just before jump.

A ship with a black globe (fairly rare since it is an artifact or experimental technology per the CT rules), would probably opt to maintain its jump capacitors at a lower level to provide the energy sink for the black globe. [This would suggest that a black globe ship might need a longer lead time to charge capacitors before a jump.]

Like I said, just a thought.

 

[snrdg082102]

Hello again Carlobrand,

High Guard 2, in the construction section, under screens: "The capacitors contained in the ship's jump drive may be used to store this energy; additional capacitors may also be purchased. The jump drive capacitors mass .5% of the ship's mass, per jump number; for example, a drive capable of jump3 will include capacitors equal to 1.5% of the ship's mass. Additional capacitors may be purchased at MCr4.0 per ton. One ton of capacitors (in a jump drive or not) will hold 36 EPs."

I knew there was additional information on the jump capacitors and as usual I couldn't find the infomation for myself. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

So, 60,000 ton hull with a J-5 drive: 0.5% x 60,000 x 5 = 300 x 5 = 1,500 dTons of capacitors. 1,500 tons of capacitors can hold 54,000 EP. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, a Power Plant-5 for a 60,000 ton hull generates 3000 EP/turn, so you'd only need 6000 EP to make a jump-5. If you happen to be using a black globe and accumulating power for jump, you don't have to worry about going over and seeing your ship destroyed at 6001 EP - your capacitors hold a fair amount over what's needed for the jump.

HG Combat rules provides the formula to determine the normal jump drive EP requirement is 0.01 x Ship's tonnage x Jn, page 39, and per the Black Globe rule, page 42, 1 ton of capacitors stores 36 EP.

The 60,000 ton ship with a J-5 drive requires 0.01 x 60,000 x 5 = 600 x 5 = 3,000 EP for a jump of 5 parsecs. If 1 ton of jump capacitors stores 36 EP then the jump drive requires round(3,000 / 36,2) = 83.33 tons of capacitors.

Apparently the engineers believe in over engineering the drive.

Here's another interesting thought: for the 100 dT jump-2 scout, with it's 3 dTon jump drive, a third of that drive - and a third of the drive's cost - is that capacitor.

Special construction required for the capacitors and kick backs.

 

[snrdg082102]

Morning McPerth,

This 60 kdton with jump 5 capacity would have a JD of 60000*6%=3600 dton, so the 1500 dton of capacitors mean a 41.66... % of the JD is capacitors, even more than your calculations for the Scout ship...

Bigger ship needs more capacitors.

The 60,000 ton ship with a J-5 Drive needs 3,000 EP to make a standard jump. In trying to break off combat the jump is being attempted as an, in my opinion, emergency procedure skipping a majority of the steps in the standard jump check list.

And yet another interesting thought: if this ship needs 6000 ep to jump, why do the jump capacitors (without installing aditional ones) have a capacity nine times that?

It will have them even in it had no black globe, and, IMHO, thats quite a large security margin...

My guess is redundancy and safety.

 

[BytePro]

Discharge rate... Jump needs the 6,000 fast (within a turn) to initiate Jump (hence its stored in caps).

This fits very nicely with the rate of discharge being based on PP and PP needing to be rated for jump.

Note that the extra EP will be discharged (naturally - using LBB5 in a number of turns) before jump is through - thus avoiding the issue that one could just charge up the caps and make multiple jumps without fuel.

[Annic Nova uses caps charged from solar energy, IIRC, if these have a different discharge/accumulation rate this explains how this would work.]

 

[snrdg082102]

Morning atpollard,

Been a while and thanks for the reply.

[Just an idea, no rules support that I know of ...]

You may be thinking about that backwards. The ship may need 54,000 EP to jump, but for safety reasons always maintains its jump capacitors at 6000 EP below rated capacity until just before jump.

A ship with a black globe (fairly rare since it is an artifact or experimental technology per the CT rules), would probably opt to maintain its jump capacitors at a lower level to provide the energy sink for the black globe. [This would suggest that a black globe ship might need a longer lead time to charge capacitors before a jump.]

Like I said, just a thought.

This is a thought I hadn't considered since my take on the rules shown on HG2 page 39 indicated that the jump drive needs that amount of EP to jump.

Of course not being a jump drive engineer and not knowing the exact details you could be on the right track.

 

[McPerth]

Morning McPerth,

Good evening here, Tom

Bigger ship needs more capacitors.

The 60,000 ton ship with a J-5 Drive needs 3,000 EP to make a standard jump. In trying to break off combat the jump is being attempted as an, in my opinion, emergency procedure skipping a majority of the steps in the standard jump check list.

The correlation in HG depends exclusively on the Jn. Capacitors remain constant at (Jn/2) percent of the tonnage of the ship. JD are (1+Jn)% of the tonnage.

So, for jump 1 the tonnage for JD is 2%, or wich 0.5% are capacitors (about 35% of the JD volume).

For a jump 6 ship, 7% of the tonnage is JD, while capacitors are 3%, so about 43% of the JD is capacitors. The higher the jump, the more percentage of the JD are capacitors.

My guess is redundancy and safety.

Nine times the needed volume for redundancy and safety?

It seems me quite too much. See that for the computer (probably the most vital element of the ship) MT (the only one to give you redundancy needs) only forces you to triple redundancy (which is quite a lot).

My guess is that the power coming from the PP is only a part of the power the capacitors need, the rest coming from the JD, and hence the disparity between power deeded to jump and capacitors capacity (speacking of redundancy... :devil.

That guess, off course, means that you need more than those 6000 EPs (2 turns PP 5 output) in your starship's capacitors (coming from enemy fire) to jump...

 

[snrdg082102]

Howdy BytePro,

Discharge rate... Jump needs the 6,000 fast (within a turn) to initiate Jump (hence its stored in caps).

This fits very nicely with the rate of discharge being based on PP and PP needing to be rated for jump.

Note that the extra EP will be discharged (naturally - using LBB5 in a number of turns) before jump is through - thus avoiding the issue that one could just charge up the caps and make multiple jumps without fuel.

[Annic Nova uses caps charged from solar energy, IIRC, if these have a different discharge/accumulation rate this explains how this would work.]

My guess has been that somehow the jump fuel, working jump capacitors, and power plant combine together in order to effect a jump. Without all three a jump is not possible, of course I might be totally wrong.

Thanks again for the reply.

 

[snrdg082102]

Good evening here, Tom

After retiring from the Navy I keep forgetting to make adjustments for the time differences. Of course I'm also lazy so I just use my PST zone, not to mention trying to mix up the salutations a bit from Howdy and Hello.

Please note that I used spell check and corrected some of the quoted material instead of just my spelling. Sorry about that.

The correlation in HG depends exclusively on the Jn. Capacitors remain constant at (Jn/2) percent of the tonnage of the ship. JD are (1+Jn)% of the tonnage.

So, for jump 1 the tonnage for JD is 2%, or which 0.5% are capacitors (about 35% of the JD volume).

For a jump 6 ship, 7% of the tonnage is JD, while capacitors are 3%, so about 43% of the JD is capacitors. The higher the jump, the more percentage of the JD are capacitors.

I'm sorting of getting the above still have some pondering to do. Right now the light bulb is flickering.

Nine times the needed volume for redundancy and safety?

It seems me quite too much. See that for the computer (probably the most vital element of the ship) MT (the only one to give you redundancy needs) only forces you to triple redundancy (which is quite a lot).

Actually triple redundancy isn't a lot when Murphy or gremlins decides to pay a visit in both the game and in real life. Of course most of my gaming experince my die rolls seem to favor the other player and all backup systems get knocked out first. Sort of like in electonics a fuse is supposed to pop before the circuit board is damaged. I've found more often than not that the circuit board goes and the fuse is fine.

My guess is that the power coming from the PP is only a part of the power the capacitors need, the rest coming from the JD, and hence the disparity between power deeded to jump and capacitors capacity (speacking of redundancy... :devil.

That guess, off course, means that you need more than those 6000 EPs (2 turns PP 5 output) in your starship's capacitors (coming from enemy fire) to jump...

Need to stop just lost power to the house.

 

[McPerth]

After retiring from the Navy I keep forgetting to make adjustments for the time differences. Of course I'm also lazy so I just use my PST zone, not to mention trying to mix up the salutations a bit from Howdy and Hello.

Don't worry about that. I guess it's unavoidable when pople arround the globe connects into the same board.

Please note that I used spell check and corrected some of the quoted material instead of just my spelling. Sorry about that.

Feel free for it (at least when quoting me). Among typos and writing in what's for me a forieign language, I must edit for fising many of my posts when reciewing them.

Actually triple redundancy isn't a lot when Murphy or gremlins decides to pay a visit in both the game and in real life. Of course most of my gaming experince my die rolls seem to favor the other player and all backup systems get knocked out first. Sort of like in electonics a fuse is supposed to pop before the circuit board is damaged. I've found more often than not that the circuit board goes and the fuse is fine.

All too often people tampers with fuses to avoid them poping, and then blame the security systems when something more serious than fuses is what it pops...

Anyway, nine times redundancy still seems too much to me, and more so in merchant ships, expected to go through less punishment.

A jump 4 1000 dton shipswould only need (according to HG breaking off and BG rules) 2 turns of its PP working at level 4, so 80 EPs and that would need only over 2 dtons, but the ship has 20 dton of them. By working just with 4 dtons of capacitors, it will save 16 dton (to carry 4 passengers or 16 dtons of cargo/freight more) and save 64 MCr of price.

I don't believe merchant ship constructors have not thought about that, so I can only conclude that all 20 dtons are necessary, even if they can store 720 EPs, instead of the 80 needed as HG rules.

Need to stop just lost power to the house.

Lack of redundant systems :devil: ?

 

[mike wightman]

The reason for the extra large capacitors is that once you have the 2 turns of power plant output warming up the capacitors you then dump the output of the massive fusion burst the jump drive produces - hence the need for all that fuel for the jump drive. The capacitors have to store and then direct that massive burst of energy as it comes flooding through.

Think of the power plant charging the capacitors as the sort of pre-heating step...

 

[snrdg082102]

Don't worry about that. I guess it's unavoidable when pople arround the globe connects into the same board.

I had the same issue in the Navy actually, but when underway in a submarine time doesn't really matter. Time doe matter when in port and trying to get a hold of a tech rep somewhere else.

Feel free for it (at least when quoting me). Among typos and writing in what's for me a forieign language, I must edit for fising many of my posts when reciewing them.

I try not to mess with the words of others unless of course I have been asked to be an editor or a spell checker. Of course I some time have issues of my own. Thanks for the persmission though.

All too often people tampers with fuses to avoid them poping, and then blame the security systems when something more serious than fuses is what it pops...

Anyway, nine times redundancy still seems too much to me, and more so in merchant ships, expected to go through less punishment.

A jump 4 1000 dton shipswould only need (according to HG breaking off and BG rules) 2 turns of its PP working at level 4, so 80 EPs and that would need only over 2 dtons, but the ship has 20 dton of them. By working just with 4 dtons of capacitors, it will save 16 dton (to carry 4 passengers or 16 dtons of cargo/freight more) and save 64 MCr of price.

I don't believe merchant ship constructors have not thought about that, so I can only conclude that all 20 dtons are necessary, even if they can store 720 EPs, instead of the 80 needed as HG rules.

Some of the times I had a system die with the fuse intact usually didn't involve the wrong size fuse, of course tracking down the problem provided interesting. I will have to admit that I did experience a fuse issue. A piece of equipment failed the fuses where clear so when I did a visual check the fuse protecting incoming power appeared to be intact. After spending time troubleshooting I reported that a new power supply was needed in the equipment. However, before I filled out the supply chit I did a test with a meter. The fuse had popped a the bottom of the end cap out of sight. I found the problem by cutting open the bad fuse. Good thing I checked again saved the budget, of course I took a ribbing for a while.

Technically speaking Book 5 HG is primarily military oriented, while Book 2 Starships is for, at least in my opinion, for civil and para-military. Book 2 only has turret weapons which gives Book 5 military designs an advantage.

Lack of redundant systems :devil: ?

Took about 45 minutes for the power company to get back the lights back on. Yep, this poor individual can't afford a back-up power system.

 

[snrdg082102]

Hello Mike WIghtman,

The reason for the extra large capacitors is that once you have the 2 turns of power plant output warming up the capacitors you then dump the output of the massive fusion burst the jump drive produces - hence the need for all that fuel for the jump drive. The capacitors have to store and then direct that massive burst of energy as it comes flooding through.

Think of the power plant charging the capacitors as the sort of pre-heating step...

Good point.

 

[atpollard]

I don't know about other fields, but in Architecture and Civil Engineering (my career) a safety factor of 2 is used for non-critical systems and a safety factor of 4 is used for 'life-safety' applications (where people could die if it fails).
As far as I remember from my old college theory courses, these were derived from empirical rules of thumb and have been used for several hundred years at least.

A quick search found this on wikipedia:

Buildings commonly use a factor of safety of 2.0 for each structural member. The value for buildings is relatively low because the loads are well understood and most structures are redundant. Pressure vessels use 3.5 to 4.0, automobiles use 3.0, and aircraft and spacecraft use 1.2 to 3.0 depending on the application and materials. Ductile, metallic materials tend to use the lower value while brittle materials use the higher values. The field of aerospace engineering uses generally lower design factors because the costs associated with structural weight are high (i.e. an aircraft with an overall safety factor of 5 would probably be too heavy to get off the ground). This low design factor is why aerospace parts and materials are subject to very stringent quality control and strict preventative maintenance schedules to help ensure reliability. A usually applied Safety Factor is 1.5, but for pressurized fuselage it is 2.0, and for main landing gear structures it is often 1.25.

So nine seems high.

 

[BytePro]

Jump drives have cap requirements. Those requirements provide for exceeding the EP output of the PP. But, the max discharge rate of said caps per turn is equal to the PP rated EP output.

While it takes a while to prep for a Jump, the Jump 'transition' occurs within a turn, not over the several turns it would take to discharge the full EP the caps could hold.

In other words, they can store more EP than the JD needs, but they cannot discharge fast enough to support the jump drive if they were smaller in volume.

This is all direct from the math in the rules - no extra rationalizations needed.

[Note also that caps can be used for more than just storing power. For a JD their role could also be as a charge pump. Meaning cap requirements are not based on EP - which they, in fact, are not in the rules. ]

 

[atpollard]

This is all direct from the math in the rules - no extra rationalizations needed.

Of course for some inexplicable reason Fusion Power Plants and Jump Drives undergo dramatic improvement from TL 9 to TL 15, while capacitor technology remains unchanged despite comprising over a third of the Jump Drive.

So no rationalizations are needed, but blinders (to avoid unpleasant distractions) are helpful. [Not a criticism, just an observation.]

 

[rancke]

Of course for some inexplicable reason Fusion Power Plants and Jump Drives undergo dramatic improvement from TL 9 to TL 15, while capacitor technology remains unchanged despite comprising over a third of the Jump Drive.

Jump drives undergo no improvement in efficiency from TL9 to TL15. Sure, the maximum jump increases, but a jump-6 costs 6 times as much energy as a jump-1, so the efficiency is exactly the same; nor can you build a smaller jump-1 drive at TL15. Which IMO requires those blinders you talk about to accept the whole "jump drives are essentially very special fusion power plants" story.


Hans

 

[snrdg082102]

Hello atpollard,

I don't know about other fields, but in Architecture and Civil Engineering (my career) a safety factor of 2 is used for non-critical systems and a safety factor of 4 is used for 'life-safety' applications (where people could die if it fails).
As far as I remember from my old college theory courses, these were derived from empirical rules of thumb and have been used for several hundred years at least.

A quick search found this on wikipedia:


So nine seems high.

Thank you for the information about the safety factor for various items. Of course the military more often than not adds to the safety factor, my guess is someone wants a relative or close friend to make money.