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How do jump drives really work?

Dragoner said:
Considering we are still discovering new life on this planet, I would question how much they would know about thousands of other planets, many of them with little or only a precursory exam.
Click to expand...

Valid question but, it is coming from a person (you & I) living in a low TL society.
There will be a finite number of combos that make life. And there will be a couple of things that will kill all you are concerned about. Such as breaking everything down to simple molecules via energy.

That was too easy. :D
 
HG_B said:
Valid question but, it is coming from a person (you & I) living in a low TL society.
There will be a finite number of combos that make life. And there will be a couple of things that will kill all you are concerned about. Such as breaking everything down to simple molecules via energy.
Click to expand...

TL9 doesn't seem so far off. Running water through a fusion reactor to separate out the H2 would work, but how efficient would it be? As far as a limit to what could be considered life or even the combos, I wouldn't be so sure, finite numbers can still be almost infinitely large.
 
HG_B said:
Well, considering that would mean having anti-grav propulsion, fusion, etc. It looks to be centuries away...

Why in the world would you run water through the reactor?
Click to expand...

To kill everything in it? though I bet there is something easier than even electrolysis. Though diving into a GG or ocean is really frontier refueling and most inhabited worlds wouldn't even let a ship out of regulated zones lest it become a terrorist death shuttle.

Timewise, look at 1870 to 1970, a hundred years there brought a lot of changes, multiple TL levels.
 
Hmm simple alge on a world that needs heat to reproduce. It has a very high threshold and breeds fast. How soon would filters, pipes, and other bits take to get coated? Something crystaline might even enjoy a reactor suntan.

Lots of things here to play with PC's
 
shadowcat20 said:
Hmm simple alge on a world that needs heat to reproduce. It has a very high threshold and breeds fast. How soon would filters, pipes, and other bits take to get coated? Something crystaline might even enjoy a reactor suntan.

Lots of things here to play with PC's
Click to expand...

Yep, the meat of discovering some amazing new alien lifeform in you fuel system is too good to pass up. However, most of the stuff posted (imo of course) is un-needed complexity, it's fun to throw around ideas though.
 
Dragoner said:
This one is simple, engineering and economics. You did the benefit side of the equation, not the cost. If the AN caps cost 3x what is being used now and only are 2x more efficient, their cost outweighs their efficiency, esp when looking at the economy of scale of the 3I (when manufacturing, distribution and training would be a huge expense). As per economics, the 3I is mercantilist, so any change to the economic model would be fought by powerful forces that control that market now.
Click to expand...

The problem is that a standard jump drive has them. In a 100 ton vessel at jump 1 you have 6.75 kl of them, so the cost was already factored in.

True there arn't any defined costs for "additional capacitors" as suggected in the blurb about black globes, however you can just add another jump drive, and we know the cost of them.

Back to not so easy.

Best regards,

Ewan
 
E.D.Quibell said:
The problem is that a standard jump drive has them. In a 100 ton vessel at jump 1 you have 6.75 kl of them, so the cost was already factored in.

True there arn't any defined costs for "additional capacitors" as suggected in the blurb about black globes, however you can just add another jump drive, and we know the cost of them.

Back to not so easy.

Best regards,

Ewan
Click to expand...

Yes, true. I was writing about the AN issue, though for additional capacitors you could say that the BG carries with it a whole stronger electrical system with greater redundancy: wiring, sub-panels, diodes, etc, everything.
 
As far as alternate power supplies for j-drives...

How about 'explosive power generation' from FFS1?
I don't have my copy handy, so I can't/won't toss out numbers.
They could charge the caps almost instantaneously, but at the cost of being a one-shot solution that has to be 're-loaded' for every jump.

Pulsed Plasma Cartridges anyone?
 
Concerning capacitors 1 ton spare caps = 36 ep at the cost of 4 Mcr per ton. Each jump drive holds caps = to Jump number x .5% of ship weight.

High Guard Page 31
 
Ishmael said:
As far as alternate power supplies for j-drives...

How about 'explosive power generation' from FFS1?
I don't have my copy handy, so I can't/won't toss out numbers.
They could charge the caps almost instantaneously, but at the cost of being a one-shot solution that has to be 're-loaded' for every jump.

Pulsed Plasma Cartridges anyone?
Click to expand...

an inverted BG could also be a great power supply as well.

anyone have an idea what the voltage/amperage of starship systems are?
 
Well the true answer to the question "How do jump drives really work" is

THEY DON'T

They are SciFi pipedreams that break the laws of physics so they don't work at all.
 
mbrinkhues said:
Well the true answer to the question "How do jump drives really work" is

THEY DON'T

They are SciFi pipedreams that break the laws of physics so they don't work at all.
Click to expand...
That's right. The correct question would be "How do jump drives 'really' work" to indicate that the reality in question was fictional.

Seriously, that something is fictional usually don't mean you can get away with just dismissing it. The answer to "Who is Merwyn Bunter" is "Peter Whimsey's valet", not "He doesn't exist, he's fictional".


Hans
 
I started this thread because of some issues I saw on the drop tank thread. I just wanted to straighten things out in my mind. About page 25 or so I broke out another thread about what is considered fuel for the same reason. Both threads have gone way past my expectations and have been very informitive.

This is a game about the fictional future. The rules are spread over 5 to 7 rules sets written over 30 years by more than one company. Nothing is going to be perfect but some of the original groundwork was built on 30 year old concepts.

A lot has changed since the 80's as to what we know. Tech has also changed a lot since then. Computers were C-64's with 16K of memory.
VCR's were new. No I-pod, I-pads, Notebooks, DVD's, CD's, Cell phones, or all the other neat toys we take for granted today.

SO I was seeing what the modern take on the old rules would be. Funny thing is, Marc had it right and most of what was written back then still holds true and fits in. With the exception of computers anyway. Since the Hubble came out the LBB 6 Scouts could use some work also. But still the Traveller system holds true today.
 
Ishmael said:
As far as alternate power supplies for j-drives...

How about 'explosive power generation' from FFS1?
I don't have my copy handy, so I can't/won't toss out numbers.
They could charge the caps almost instantaneously, but at the cost of being a one-shot solution that has to be 're-loaded' for every jump.

Pulsed Plasma Cartridges anyone?
Click to expand...

Hey it worked for that plane in "Flight of the Phoenix" with Jimmy Stewart. Well, sorta.
 
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