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Hydrogen and Jump, some musings...

1. The basic technology is TL-15 but there are good reasons nobody uses it despite the obvious advantages.
However it works, it should not be better than T5 antimatter power.

If it does not need active containment (just armored tanks), it could be provided in a drop tank form factor. This is problematic....
 
Thinking it over a bit, and still just sketching on the back of an envelope.

....

4. Fuel hits take out 10Td of fuel or 10% of tankage (and that AV-15 doesn't protect from damage, since it's all needed to keep the material contained).

Questions, comments, or concerns?
I would say that such a ship that used this system (if it could be made to be stable and usable) would have to have a hits chart that reduced the "Fuel Hit result in combat.
Such a system would be desired to reduce the Tdisplaced so more systems could be added, and would (hopefully) reduce the size of the system, to install such tankage more deep within the structure of the ship.

That's just me spit balling because I want to write a news item based on the idea to include in my next game
 
I would say that such a ship that used this system (if it could be made to be stable and usable) would have to have a hits chart that reduced the "Fuel Hit result in combat.
Such a system would be desired to reduce the Tdisplaced so more systems could be added, and would (hopefully) reduce the size of the system, to install such tankage more deep within the structure of the ship.

That's just me spit balling because I want to write a news item based on the idea to include in my next game
Yes, fewer fuel hit results, but each one takes out a bigger chunk of the total.

Expect more collateral damage from hits, due to 10x greater expansion than a ruptured LH2 tank. Placing the MetH2 tanks toward the hull surface with blow-out panels can mitigate this somewhat.
 
The main problem is that it wrecks the OTU and probably the entire starship build system.

They're effectively very small, very high capacity rechargeable batteries useable at TL-9+, that need big and expensive TL-15 chargers.
 
Well, as I've mentioned before. The incongruity of it all stems from JTAS 24, and the concept of the jump capacitors. It always seemed from the article, that the real key to jump was charging the capacitors, and then discharging them to jump.
Yes, it's explicit: You only need enough energy, delivered quickly enough, to jump.

I would argue (without much canon support) that the "jump capacitors" are just a buffer regulating the difference between the flow of power from the PP and to the jump drive. By LBB5 they can't hold nearly enough energy for a jump without exploding.

The simple, practical solution is fusion and a lot of hydrogen fuel. Other exotic solutions may exist...


If batteries (or "jump capacitors") were good enough to power jump, basically all other spacecraft power plants would be obsolete at least for anything but starships. Smallcraft, fighters, SDBs, and battleriders would be battery powered and much cheaper. I believe that would be incompatible with canon.
 
Using the Black Globe entry, you can come to the conclusion that a tonne of jump capacitors can hold fifty power points, which with a twenty percent volume dedicated to jump capacitors, would give them two hundred fifty percent capacity, two and a half times that required at default.
 
The main problem is that it wrecks the OTU and probably the entire starship build system.

They're effectively very small, very high capacity rechargeable batteries useable at TL-9+, that need big and expensive TL-15 chargers.
Well,
You're right "if it can be done", but it's just a research project.

Of course, if it can be done, the resultant classes of ships would be extremely expensive and limited in how they can be put into use.
So, even if my spitballing were for a real breakthrough, it would have limited impact at best.
 
Well,
You're right "if it can be done", but it's just a research project.
Putting it at TL-16 solves that, mostly. :)
Of course, if it can be done, the resultant classes of ships would be extremely expensive and limited in how they can be put into use.
Not really! It's just a way to store hydrogen at much higher density than in liquid form. Getting it into metallic form is hard and expensive. Once it's stored though, it's just very dense hydrogen.


Let it "melt" to liquid, and any ship can use it (but you need volume-effect grav/maneuver drives -- or, of course, jump drives) for it to make any sense.
So, even if my spitballing were for a real breakthrough, it would have limited impact at best.
Its cuts jump fuel tonnage (volume) to 1% per Jn instead of 10% per Jn. That's significant.

It can be nerfed by requiring more tonnage to hold it (say, it needs to be stored in an atomic-level matrix/lattice of bonded superdense material), or by requiring large energy inputs to contain the MetH2 with gravitic/nuclear-damper-like fields. It may take a while to "unpack" from its confinement without running a risk of blowing out the tank it's expanding into. It can be made expensive. And so on.
 
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This takes up more space but is safer.

Metal hydride storage replaces a ship’s normal fuel tankage but consumes twice as much space and costs MCr0.2 per ton.

If the ship sustains a fuel leak (fuel critical hit Severity 1–3, as shown on page 170 of the Traveller CoreRulebook), fuel loss is reduced to 25% of the amount indicated, to a minimum of one ton.
 
The way I've got it for IMTU is the jump drive is mostly a huge muon catalyzed fusion reactor, the capacitors are for forcing an absolute huge fusion energy conversion of all that fuel to make the jump to the right 'dimension level' (ala Harrington books) to then jump through.

So if you aren't going to do all that converting, your antimatter or possibly capacitor-like gizmo better have a lot of juice.

I suppose you could say the Annic Nova is an alien solution, bypassing the huge energy costs of creating the 'exotic field' that makes jump possible by collecting them naturally. Assuming the AN is reverse engineered, then maybe you can build an exotic fuel cost of the special collection, handling and transference of said particles as a very space saving but expensive process so you are not locked into a slow 'refuel' cycle.
 
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How are the muons generated?

I don't know how Kilemall envisions it, but I would suggest that if we accept the existence of Meson Screen technology (and that Meson weaponry is at least in some way related to mesons and muons as canon sources such as T5 and others seem to indicate, and not just a pure cover story), then we have control over and manipulation of the Weak Nuclear Force and the possibility of inducing muon-generation thru induced lepton-interactions.
 
1. Going by the current edition, assuming that exotic particles are muons.

2. You could gather wild exotic particles, which bypasses the need for hydrogen turbines.

3. The jump drive turbines are create artificial exotic particles, or turn hydrogen into exotic particles.

4. It's possible nuclear dampers or meson strainers are involved, but jump drives are mature by technological level nine, so unlikely.
 
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