Hydrogen Fueled Jump Drives

[kilemall]

This is one of those little mysteries. It would be way more economical to stick a purification plant on every merchant ship, in the long run. So why don't they all have them? One of those areas where I don't think the ship design rules work very well.

I can think of a couple.

That's tonnage that is costing you profit potential soaking up space that should be making money.

The time loss of going off to fuel up is likely not worth it in any but bush pilot/exploration scenarios. Not to mention you are paying crew time while not hauling anything.

 

[mike wightman]

It would be even more economical to build your own processor plant on every world on your route.
Sell it when you don't need it.

 

[welsh]

That's tonnage that is costing you profit potential soaking up space that should be making money.

If you interpret the size on the HG table to be a minimum then that's certainly true. If you say, "Well I've only got 100 tons of fuel so my TL 12 purification plant is 3 tons," then that's Cr. 3000 in freight vs. a savings of Cr. 40,000 in fuel costs. This is how people I know have insisted on interpreting the HG table ... it meshes better with Book 2 ships if we say a purification plant has a minimum size.

I made the point re travel time to get to the GG being time wasted earlier ... this is considering buying unrefined fuel at starports.

It would be even more economical to build your own processor plant on every world on your route.
Sell it when you don't need it.

That's what starports do -- build processing plants and sell refined fuel. So either (a) unrefined fuel should be more expensive at starports, or (b) refined fuel should be cheaper, so that it's more economical to just buy from the starport.

 

[creativehum]

Or, given the relatively low cost of purification plants, it seems to me there should be an active market place where there are many entrepreneurs in any active system constantly undercutting each other to lower costs all the time.

Now, if that's what folks want, great. But, again, this is one of several logical conclusions of the introduction of the purification plants in Book 5 Highguard. The introduction of them simply tears apart the entire economy premised in Books 1-3, in that the difference between refined and unrefined fuel is pretty much moot, and the notion one will be dependent on a single seller (the starport) for refined fuel goes out the window.

 

[welsh]

Is it stipulated that the starport itself sells fuel, or is it simply that fuel is sold at the starport?

In any case, I agree that it messes up the economy.

I have been meaning to sit down and figure out the cost of running a small fleet of fuel tenders back and forth to a gas giant, per ton of fuel, which tells us what unrefined fuel should actually cost given the rules ... I am assuming that on most worlds, locals would prefer not to sell their water resources by the ton, because water is kind of important to life.

One thing that ought to be addressed with gas giant skimming, btw, is radiation hazards ... the rules don't address these kinds of dangers and they make free fuel a bit less attractive.

 

[creativehum]

Is it stipulated that the starport itself sells fuel, or is it simply that fuel is sold at the starport?

It is not stipulated. I didn't mean to imply one way or the other. I can see it working many ways across many worlds even in the same subsector.

In any case, I agree that it messes up the economy.

Yes. That's the point that matters most to me.

And I'll add, my concern is how to have a simple system for RPG play where the PCs are on the hook for dealing with the frontier environment implied by the rules of Basic Traveller. Trying to build out the whole simulation of the economy isn't my thing. But I know it is for many people!

 

[mike wightman]

Instead of purification plants HG should have included a cost for unrefined fuel enabled drives - problem solved

A fuel refinery could then be an installation far too big to be included on anything less than a dedicated refinery ship or ground installation.

 

[creativehum]

Instead of purification plants HG should have included a cost for unrefined fuel enabled drives - problem solved

A fuel refinery could then be an installation far too big to be included on anything less than a dedicated refinery ship or ground installation.

I agree.

And as I stated unthread, that's what I thought the rules about military ships and scout ships meant in Basic Traveller. The idea is that there would still be wear and tear over time -- requiring expensive maintenance and repairs that a government could afford. Yes, the ship can go longer with unrefined fuel than most ships. But in the spirit of original Traveller, there's a cost to that advantage.

If you don't get that work done over time, the ship begin to suffer the same fate as any merchant ship using unrefined fuel.

 

[Condottiere]

Wear and tear doesn't seem to be comparable to current experiences.

Zero point one percent maintenance and no discernible depreciation, except a quirk per decade.

 

[creativehum]

Wear and tear doesn't seem to be comparable to current experiences.

Zero point one percent maintenance and no discernible depreciation, except a quirk per decade.

Can you tell me more about this?
I have no context for your comment.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Is it stipulated that the starport itself sells fuel, or is it simply that fuel is sold at the starport?

I think that's partially up to the referee and the gaming adventure material. A high law level dictatorship might have nationalized industries, and the only place you can get fuel (legally) is at the starport, whereas a balkanized world would probably have hundreds of companies selling the stuff, perhaps with additives to add life to your powerplant / m-drive, or what not.

 

[Condottiere]

Ye basic spaceship costs one thousandth of it's cost price to maintain per annum, and only develops a possible problem in it's ship components once per decade.

 

[BwapTED]

In Imperium and Dark Nebula the tankers make fuel from stellar atmoshperes...

Helium 3?

 

[Blue Ghost]

Ye basic spaceship costs one thousandth of it's cost price to maintain per annum, and only develops a possible problem in it's ship components once per decade.

Argh, I don't have me tome of rules with me.

 

[kilemall]

If you interpret the size on the HG table to be a minimum then that's certainly true. If you say, "Well I've only got 100 tons of fuel so my TL 12 purification plant is 3 tons," then that's Cr. 3000 in freight vs. a savings of Cr. 40,000 in fuel costs. This is how people I know have insisted on interpreting the HG table ... it meshes better with Book 2 ships if we say a purification plant has a minimum size.

I made the point re travel time to get to the GG being time wasted earlier ... this is considering buying unrefined fuel at starports.

The 3 tons is if you have a TL15 ship, would be slightly bigger in most cases.

However, you have a compelling case with the unrefined costing. Practically makes those Free Traders actually profitable.

One could IMTU that you do not get unrefined fuel at the starport UNLESS you are military/scout with those rough frontier drives. Empire-wide safety regulations in service to subsidizing the local gas hauling/refining industry/franchise don't ya know.

TCS lists A starports as having 2 million tons of fuel capacity, and 1.5 million for B starports. Even a C starport has 1 million tons.

Now if you are busy enough to make that a weekly turnover, that's 104 million tons moving through a single A starport yearly.

The difference between 104 billion credits of yearly business and 520 billion credits of yearly business strongly suggests a motivation to prop up the refined business with limits.

 

[kilemall]

Argh, I don't have me tome of rules with me.

If ye don't have ye tome of spells, ye cannot wield the magick!

 

[creativehum]

Ye basic spaceship costs one thousandth of it's cost price to maintain per annum, and only develops a possible problem in it's ship components once per decade.

Thanks.

So, with what I'm talking about -- which ignores Book 5 and is not canon in any way -- costs would be higher and even military ships that depended too much on unrefined fuel would pay much higher fees to rebuild their systems and would be risking misjumsp, drives failures, and so on.

Military and Scout ships can make do with unrefined fuel. But if used too long, there are the risks of harsh consequences.

 

[welsh]

The 3 tons is if you have a TL15 ship, would be slightly bigger in most cases.

Actually, I chose the TL 12 line off the table.

TL15 has 15 tons of processing plant per 1000 tons of fuel, so half the size.

TCS lists A starports as having 2 million tons of fuel capacity, and 1.5 million for B starports. Even a C starport has 1 million tons.

This is a fishy rule that seems to have been developed with TCS campaigns in mind, without considering the "real" universe. Does a class C starport on a backwater world that is off the trade routes really have a million tons of fuel on hand? How much fuel is available at a class-A starport situated on a desert world in a system with no gas giants, and what does it cost?

To me, unless the system is a trade hub or has a naval base, you won't see huge quantities of fuel on hand simply because nobody but the Navy has fuel tanks in the thousands of tons.

 

[kilemall]

Actually, I chose the TL 12 line off the table.

TL15 has 15 tons of processing plant per 1000 tons of fuel, so half the size.

The actual rule says you can go 1/5, which quoting your 3 ton processor is what you would have for 200 tons or less. TL12 would be 6 tons.

This is a fishy rule that seems to have been developed with TCS campaigns in mind, without considering the "real" universe. Does a class C starport on a backwater world that is off the trade routes really have a million tons of fuel on hand? How much fuel is available at a class-A starport situated on a desert world in a system with no gas giants, and what does it cost?

To me, unless the system is a trade hub or has a naval base, you won't see huge quantities of fuel on hand simply because nobody but the Navy has fuel tanks in the thousands of tons.

What the rule doesn't cover is how much fuel is typically used per week and how quickly can it be replenished.

I would probably go with something like tonnage replenishment of 1% of the populace- so a 5 million person planet replenishes at 50,000 tons per week, a 5 billion at the full 2 million, and 5 people probably had a fleet, another planet in the system or subcontractor build up the reserve, or a special case of highly robotized tankers.

If the fuel is not replenished that quickly, it simply is a huge storage facility against need.

As to why, the TCS campaign itself explains- fleets require fuel, it likely is a national defense requirement in addition to being a qualifying facility for that starport rating.

Which brings to mind a possible dynamic, could be that the unwritten contract of the planetary surrender/no bombardment or abuse might have that fuel supply as a bargaining chip for both sides.

Act badly and the fuel supply is destroyed or tainted, or your planet is blown to hell. Act well and everyone gets what they want.

A planet decides to fight, has those meson gun sites, likely that fuel supply is rigged to detonate- or may need to be preserved for army/SDB use if there is not water on the planet and the rest of the system is cut off.

And the planet better win.

 

[welsh]

The actual rule says you can go 1/5, which quoting your 3 ton processor is what you would have for 200 tons or less.

Aha. Missed that. You are correct.

Even so, the fuel savings still outweigh the cargo tonnage lost.

As to why, the TCS campaign itself explains- fleets require fuel, it likely is a national defense requirement in addition to being a qualifying facility for that starport rating.

But if it were a qualifying requirement for a starport rating, then a desert world with no GGs in the system would be significantly less likely to have a class-A starport, and this is not the case. In fact the starport class is entirely random, being the first thing we roll for in system generation.

I see this as an arbitrary rule developed to facilitate TCS play, without bogging players down in nasty, boring logistics. The money to be made in the fuel business is better estimated based on port trade, I think.

The economics here are kind of broken. The quickest solution is to increase the annual maintenance costs for ships that use unrefined fuel, and have unrefined fuel cause problems other than misjump: reduced M drive potential, computer failure (dirty power, don'tcha know), etc.