High Guard 5

[robject]

Another misnomer, but I had some equations I've recently been playing with and I needed a place to put them, so here you go.

I've been pawing through QSDS, Book 2, and a wee bit of High Guard, pulling out numbers more or less randomly.

I want to take these apart and figure out why they're stupid and why they make sense.

</font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">Jump drives
TL range tons MCr Notes

9-12 5 + 2.5% x jn hull x jn / 20 Book 2 A-V
13-15 70 + 1% x jn hull x jn / 20 High-Guard-like
1% x (jn+1) High-Guard actual
1% x (jn+1) 4.2 x drive vol T4's QSDS actual
16+ 85 + (hull x jn)/85 180 + hull x jn / 200 Book 2 W-Z

Drives W through Z are so efficient they're even better than HG drives.

Maneuver Drives
TL range tons MCr Notes
9-12 2% + 3% x g High Guard
9-12 appx 2% x g 3.5 x drive vol T4's QSDS
13-15 1.0% x g - 1 4 x drive vol Book 2 A-V
16+ 0.2% x g + 30 4 x drive vol Book 2 W-Z

Power Plants
TL range tons MCr Notes
7-8 4% x pn High Guard
9-11 9 x ep ep x 25 T4's QSDS
9-12 3% x pn High Guard
12-15 1 + 1.5 x ep ep x 4 Book 2 A-V
13-14 2% x pn High Guard
15 1% x pn High Guard
16+ 50 + 3 x ep / 10 ep/10 + 120 Book 2 W-Z

Energy Points here are derived from CT as (hull x pn)/100.</pre>[/QUOTE]

 

[Plankowner]

IMHO, for the M-Drive and PP, there should be a fairly big jump between TL8 and TL9. I would think that the introduction of gravitic technology should dramatically improve the efficiency of these systems.

I have a problem with all the systems keeping the cost constant per ton. It seems to me, the cost/ton should go down as well as the tonnage going down as TL goes up. This would make certain systems VERY cheap after a couple of TLs, but I think that is how it should be. By TL 15, the M-Drive will have been around for several thousands of years, it should be pretty darn efficient and cheap. HG used a simple 4MCr per ton for the Jump Drive cost, no mater what the TL was. Doesn't make sense to me.

 

[robject]

Thanks Plank. I think you're right, there should be a jump there.

Constant cost probably isn't an economic reality; it's more likely to be a game-complexity reality, though.

Anyhow, you can get the same effect by increasing drive efficiency, based on what you think the Far Future should be like.


Here's all those different formulae normalized a bit.

</font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">Jump drives
TL range tons MCr Notes

9-12 5 + hull x jn / 40 2 x (drive vol-5) Book 2 A-V
13-15 hull x (jn+1)/100 4 x drive vol from HG/T4
16+ 85 + (hull x jn)/85 3 x drive vol from Book 2 W-Z

Maneuver Drives
TL range tons MCr Notes
9-12 2% + 3% x g 4 x drive vol from HG
13-15 1.0% x g - 1 4 x drive vol Book 2 A-V
16+ 0.2% x g + 30 4 x drive vol Book 2 W-Z

Power Plants
TL range tons MCr Notes
7-8 6 x ep 4 x drive vol from T4
9-11 3 x ep 1.5 x drive vol from HG
12-14 2 x ep 2 x drive vol High Guard
15 1 + 1.5 x ep 2.5 x drive vol from Book 2 A-V
16+ 50 + 3.0 x ep / 10 3 x drive vol from Book 2 W-Z

Energy Points here are derived from CT as (hull x pn)/100.</pre>[/QUOTE]

 

[Scott Martin]

If you're using FF&S as the base layer, then you can't have a fusion drive below TL-9, and fission plants at TL-8 are 1/2 the power density of TL-9 fusion (6xEP) and TL-7 plants are 0.3x the efficiency of TL-9 Fusion (10xEP)

This pretty much guarentees that you won't see a 6-G TL-7 ship

Actual cost by capability continues to drop by TL, since the size of these systems continues to shrink. Adding more complexity than this for cost reduction is probably not worth the decrease in playablilty.

Scott Martin

 

[robject]

In response to a good, clarifying email from Marc, I'm referring the Book2v5 and HGv5 topics over to Traveller5.com, where I've created a forum entirely for starship discussion topics, and created an initial "first things first" topic with his email as the first post.

http://traveller5.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=16