And once again, but no
No, it's an anomaly featured in one very early adventure that does not fit with the vast majority of other canon. Accepting it would require invalidating some much more important parts of canon for practically no gain. So it's not worth accepting.
Which bit of canon exactly?
TNE's tech paradigm revision for the OTU, different values for jump engine size, different values for jump fuel required, different rules on how much fuel is used per jump?
It's all a big mess and the Annic Nova's solar collector is the least of the problems.
One time. He mentioned it once. Presumably without considering the logical ramifications. AFAIK, neither he, nor any of the people he has authorized over the years to write official Traveller material has ever mentioned it again.
It's mentioned explicitely in his definitive jump drive article and has been mentioned in other sources too.
And even if Marc Miller said it once a day and twice on sundays, it would still not be compatible with the rest of canon.
I would accept this if other canon were consistent - but it isn't.
How canon evolved is irrelevant. The important thing is that it did evolve and what it evolved into.
TNE tech paradigm?
T4?
T5?
MgT?
Not a solution, because Book 2 ship construction is incompatible with the established background information for the OTU (most egregious example: dates for when jump-2, -3, -4, -5, and -6 was discovered).
DGP invented the jump drive dates to tie in with the HG re-write of the jump drive paradigm.
The fact remains that every CT adventure and supplement that used the LBB2 design sequence outnumber the HG derived ones.
And even HG states that the LBB2 drives can be used instead.
Because it would give a significant increase in volume available for other purposes, upping its earning potential considerably.
Not if I wrote the design sequence for them it wouldn't - that 's why the standard is the hydrogen based engine.
Always try to justify things using real world physics, because while the OTU is indeed imaginary, the imaging includes being very much like the real world except in a few select instances. Of which jump physics is one but the physical properties of the elements and other substances isn't.
Rubbish - very little Traveller tech stands up to real world physics and chemistry. Trying to invoke it one one hand while ignoring it on the other just makes hypocrites of us.
I'll accept that it has to be done slowly as it doesn't contradict anything else we know. The upper limit on the limit on a jump-1 drive is one week divided by five, since the Annic Nova can recharge enough to do a jump-2 and a jump-3 in one week. So, the Annic Nova jump drive (or rather, the capacitors that activate it) has to be charged over 34 hours.
It takes 1-6 weeks to recharge the equivalent of jump 5 - the average is 3.
So it's 21 days divided by 5 on average to charge for jump 1, that's 4 days per jump 1 in average circumstances.
Oh, the capacitors has to be charged a full week and the fact that the AN's solar sail can gather enough to power a J2 and a J3 jump in a week merely means that the solar sails and the capacitor banks are five times as large as necessary for a jump-1 ship?
Yes, a jump 1 solar collector based ship would have 1/5 of the accumulators, but I would have a minimum size for the solar collector machinery built into the design sequence - meta game balancing.
Very well. So you empty the capacitors and enter jumpspace. You now have a week to recharge the capacitors while you're in jump...
Oh, for some reason the recharging won't work in jumpspace?
Of course it won't, the jump engines are set performing the jump you have initiated, you don't go feeding anymore power into them anymore than you try and do a hydrogen based jump while in jump.
Very well. That does put the kibosh on regular commercial use of the ANJD, at least for the lower jump drives. Not so much the freetraders who already spend a week in each system (I don't buy the notion that "the authorities" would forbid fusion reactors from run while ships are in port[*]), but for the regular ships that only stay in a system for a couple of days before jumping out again. What a pity there's no other application for this drive.
[*] And if they did, they surely wouldn't object to the ship hooking up to the starport power grid and recharge that way.
How much waste heat is a fully operational power plant going to dump into the starport?
Suddenly the starport has to provide massive heat sinks or coolant?
A free trader spends a week on the ground looking for cargo/passengers according to the rules - transit time to and from jump point is usually a few hours at most at 1g.
A solar collector based ship would have to sit for 4 days per jump 1 on average waiting to charge the jump engine by whatever means. assuming a hybrid craft could do it in the minimum time required it's still and extra day and a half added to every jump cycle. Over a year that adds up.
Now again back to the metagame - if I were allocating a cost to the accumulators for a solar collector based drive I would make them so expensive that a jump 1 hybrid can't compete with a jump 1 hydrogen based ship.
Except, that is, to cross rifts and go through systems with no ready source of hydrogen. Why, you could cross the Great Rift in half a dozen jumps instead of having to spend a couple of dozen jumps going around. I think you might even save a few hours by doing it that way, don't you?
The great rift has no stars - therefore a solar collector based craft wouldn't be able to do it at all.
A hybrid ship would have to take along all the power plant fuel for the trip - and power plant fuel takes up quite a bit of space too.
So much so that it would be better to use fuel caches or drop tanks to make the trip
It's a real head-scratcher to imagine why no one does that, isn't it? Could it be that the ANJD doesn't actually exist in the OTU, whatever other Traveller universes it may exist in?
No need to be snarky
Except that the Annic Nova does exist in the OTU - JTAS and adventure, TAS news items etc.
Accept it and explain it instead of just ignoring it.
It is very easy to come up with the design sequence for solar collector based jump drives, even hybrids, that is compatible with LBB2 and HG (in fact HG probaly provides the base value for the actual jump engine) in such a way as to make the hydrogen based drive the preferred economical choice - since it is economics that rules the OTU after all
It would not be enough to do provide a reason in the case of the higher jumps. A jump-4 that can jump once every three weeks carrying a 60% payload (note: figures are not exact) would outcompete one that can jump once every two weeks with a 30% payload.
Hans
Ok, assuming the OTU is real in some form - solar collector base jump drives and hybrids cost far too much to make them economically viable.
Once again - it is up to the game designers to make an economic incentive for the hydrogen based drive.
The OTU is a sandbox - this is actually something that has fueled my imagination for Traveller for the first time in a long time - time to write the design sequence for solar collectors and hybrids methinks.
