salochin999
SOC-13
So is the problem that energy consumption in jump space doesn't work the same way it does in normal space?
If so, is that a problem?
If so, is that a problem?
Liquid Hydrogen Jump Bubble
- Thread starter Timerover51
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Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
You are generating all of that energy inside of your ship in a very short period of time. For a 500,000 dTon dreadnought with Jump-4, that is the energy from 200,000 tons of Liquid Hydrogen. Would you kindly compute the amount of energy released by that? How many millions of megatons or trillions of megawatt-hours? So, yes, that is a "minor" problem with the whole concept.
It's magic kids.
Timerover, you do confound me, sometimes you are just the most coolest and informative dude, and then you go all "ultra-realism" over something that is for all intents and purposes, magi-tech. Trading a Piper Hyperdrive for a Miller Jump Drive is not that big a switch. You take one completely made up thing that can't possibly work under physics as we currently know them with another completely made up thing that can't possibly function under physics as we currently know them. Why all the shouting about megatons of energy when pretty much all FTL requires megatons of energy which is why we will mostly likely die within our solar system as a species, the costs are too great for real interstellar travel.
Man, you go to stop sweating the petty things.
It is less than a minor problem, put on your Belief Suspension Goggles, turn them to Maximum and let it not worry you since like all things in the Far Future of the various TUs it is completely made the hell up.
Timerover, you do confound me, sometimes you are just the most coolest and informative dude, and then you go all "ultra-realism" over something that is for all intents and purposes, magi-tech. Trading a Piper Hyperdrive for a Miller Jump Drive is not that big a switch. You take one completely made up thing that can't possibly work under physics as we currently know them with another completely made up thing that can't possibly function under physics as we currently know them. Why all the shouting about megatons of energy when pretty much all FTL requires megatons of energy which is why we will mostly likely die within our solar system as a species, the costs are too great for real interstellar travel.
Man, you go to stop sweating the petty things.
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
It is less than a minor problem, put on your Belief Suspension Goggles, turn them to Maximum and let it not worry you since like all things in the Far Future of the various TUs it is completely made the hell up.
Timerover, you do confound me, sometimes you are just the most coolest and informative dude, and then you go all "ultra-realism" over something that is for all intents and purposes, magi-tech. Trading a Piper Hyperdrive for a Miller Jump Drive is not that big a switch. You take one completely made up thing that can't possibly work under physics as we currently know them with another completely made up thing that can't possibly function under physics as we currently know them. Why all the shouting about megatons of energy when pretty much all FTL requires megatons of energy which is why we will mostly likely die within our solar system as a species, the costs are too great for real interstellar travel.
Man, you go to stop sweating the petty things.
I do march to my own set of BAGPIPES. Preferably playing "Amazing Grace".
Ah, the pipes! 
I mean I get you don't really dig the OTU and would much prefer a Piper-Norton TU, but without all the cool stuff (in my opinion) and you fixate on what seems to be the most trivial matters (and yes, it does amuse me to dismiss physics as trivial, since one can only do that in a game). Hell, I am an accredited Traveller Naval Architect and I don't sweat that level of detail.
I am trying to figure out the method to your particular "madness" is all.
First off, quit trying to play the "I like bagpipes, hence I am all different or something.". Dude, I love bagpipes, I do after all carry Scotland in name and blood. I too dig the wailing screes, but that doesn't make me incomprehensible or clever or special or even very unique. That statement is some straight up double talk. Look, I like Kiwi fruit, doesn't explain why I love playing Nobles. Feeling powerless and having once played a Noble however does.
I mean I get you don't really dig the OTU and would much prefer a Piper-Norton TU, but without all the cool stuff (in my opinion) and you fixate on what seems to be the most trivial matters (and yes, it does amuse me to dismiss physics as trivial, since one can only do that in a game). Hell, I am an accredited Traveller Naval Architect and I don't sweat that level of detail.
I am trying to figure out the method to your particular "madness" is all.
salochin999
SOC-13
In normal space or jump space? I don't know how energy consumption works in jump space but if it effectively leads to tricking the universe into allowing FTL travel then I imagine it's pretty weird.
(Personally I mostly like the extreme jump fuel usage (not so much the m-drive usage) as it creates interesting situations but if it annoys you then change it.)
Donning the IMTU flame suit *grin*
I go with fuel is converted overloaded powerplant into Jump Drive usable power points (Charge those crystals) over a short (inefficient) period of time, whether or not it's on board or drop tanks. Initiation of jump takes time, it's not the BSG hit the button and blip there you go. The Jump Drive can hold a charge a short time before it either initiates Jump or starts doing Bad Things Tm. The field is maintained by the Jump Drive via power points expenditure over time, something that can be calculated. If it's draining too slow or too fast it's a good bet you are not going where you wanted.
Behind the scenes, Jump Fuel is an artificially created limiter to keep people from having Jump 6 on their 100 ton bells and whistles scout/brothel err yacht at every opportunity. /shrug YMMV but I can suspend disbelief that much.
And just for the record: Bagpipes: Scotland the Brave! (queues up said tune)
I go with fuel is converted overloaded powerplant into Jump Drive usable power points (Charge those crystals) over a short (inefficient) period of time, whether or not it's on board or drop tanks. Initiation of jump takes time, it's not the BSG hit the button and blip there you go. The Jump Drive can hold a charge a short time before it either initiates Jump or starts doing Bad Things Tm. The field is maintained by the Jump Drive via power points expenditure over time, something that can be calculated. If it's draining too slow or too fast it's a good bet you are not going where you wanted.
Behind the scenes, Jump Fuel is an artificially created limiter to keep people from having Jump 6 on their 100 ton bells and whistles scout/brothel err yacht at every opportunity. /shrug YMMV but I can suspend disbelief that much.
And just for the record: Bagpipes: Scotland the Brave! (queues up said tune)
And just for the record: Bagpipes: Scotland the Brave! (queues up said tune)
I am putting my vote in for the Uilleann Pipes. Best sound of all the various pipes, IMHO.
Now, back to the thread topic . . .
My general understanding of the OTU Jump paradigm is that the LHyd "fuel" is not only that which actually goes into the Jump Drive and/or Power Plant to produce the window into Jump Space, but also the associated vented coolant for the fast-burning power plant and J-Drive assembly, as well as the "atmosphere" within the created "jump-bubble" between the ship and the maximum extent of the Jump Field (I am less sold on that last part).
As mentioned upthread, supposedly the Jump Drive and Power Plant are generating the energy through extreme overclocking of the Power Plant, which for this particular use is extremely fuel inefficient above and beyond all the LHyd that is vented as coolant and/or bubble volume.
An interesting aside to all of this is how this modifies the view of Jump Drives and/or Power Plants that do not use the standard Imperial TL15 technology. For example, the often mentioned Annic Nova Jump Drives (which use no LHyd Fuel at all [at least none is mentioned above and beyond the charge accumulators for the Drives]), or futuristic drives powered by Antimatter Power Plants (do they need to carry LHyd for Jump or not?).
As mentioned upthread, supposedly the Jump Drive and Power Plant are generating the energy through extreme overclocking of the Power Plant, which for this particular use is extremely fuel inefficient above and beyond all the LHyd that is vented as coolant and/or bubble volume.
An interesting aside to all of this is how this modifies the view of Jump Drives and/or Power Plants that do not use the standard Imperial TL15 technology. For example, the often mentioned Annic Nova Jump Drives (which use no LHyd Fuel at all [at least none is mentioned above and beyond the charge accumulators for the Drives]), or futuristic drives powered by Antimatter Power Plants (do they need to carry LHyd for Jump or not?).
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Please stop asking us to kindy calculate these things, as you are not being kind. You have a bone to pick with a four decade old game design mechanic, and you're taking it out on all of us, for some reason.
Traveller uses a model that equates to--modern vehicles are limited by their fuel tanks, so we'll incorporate that into our game design system for starships and handwave the details. 10% of initial mass per ly per jump is a completely arbitrary, but highly useful mechanic which allows the designers of a given TU to decide who can reach whom, and with how much of their ship dedicated to getting there. It is sublimely useful in the design of a game designed around a party of adventurers and what they can do, which is the primary conceit of the game.
I'm not saying that science fiction should not strive for realism, or at least explainability and verisimilitude. However, any explanation is an arbitrary justification for the game mechanics that exist to serve the character story. That Traveller tries at all to explain how its FTL travel works (instead of the more convenient options, "that's up to you" or "how does it work? Very well, thank you.") leaves it open to the rigors of overanalysis. That's a no-win game for Traveller, since it will never satisfy everyone, because as a speculative fiction trope, no one knows, nor agrees on how FTL ought to work.
So I don't know what that means for you. We all get the issue. We're just not in agreement that it is such a massive problem.
Oh, and as to the calculation. Since we don't know what happens to the hydrogen, we'll just say that it's directly converted to energy and used to fuel the jump directly. That's E=MC^2 (200,000 tons x 1000 kg/ton x 300,000,000 m/s x 300,000,000 m/s = 1.8 x 10^25 Joules = 5 x 10^15 MW-h or 4.3 billion megatons of energy).
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If Memory serves the hydrogen isn't used by the reactors. It's as mentioned above vented into the jump bubble. to Keep the bubble inflated with matter It was explained in the Starship operators Guide, and hasn't officially been written out of the setting.
Fusing that much hydrogen in a matter of minutes would create a mini-sun....and I don't think that Traveller reactors have that sort of capability
In all reality the fuel cost for a jump is a limiting mechanic. he larger the ship, the longer the jump, the more expensive it becomes to operate the vessel. Dropping the fuel. requirements would alter the economics of the world vastly since ( purchase cost and payments excluded) the largest cost of the cost of operating a starship is fuel costs, and the ability to acquire fuel between jumps.
As mentioned earlier in this thread, using Lhyd for coolant is highly inefficient. Given that volume is the critical ressource in shipbuilding, you wouldn't use 10% hydrogen but 1% hydrogen and a couple of percent of water.
Depending on the cost, some designer phase change material might even be used for the coolant.
Hans
Depending on the cost, some designer phase change material might even be used for the coolant.
Hans
But...
Could be any number of reason why liquid hydrogen is used, I mean we are told that Jumpspace is not this universe and works on different rules.
What if the reason that the Jump system uses L-Hyd is that it is the only element that does not cause some sort of problem. Maybe water doesn't work, maybe the molecule is too complex and it shattered and kills the ship with the energy. Maybe hydrogen is present in both universes and that commonality protects the ship.
Could be any number of reason why liquid hydrogen is used, I mean we are told that Jumpspace is not this universe and works on different rules.
Remember, all the fuel burning takes place before entering jump-space. Why should water not be perfectly usable for coolant in the real universe?
No, but we do know quite a bit about how this universe works and that's where the coolant is used.
Hans
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Wasn't there a ST:TNG where they were trapped and some alien race in another universe was trapped, and Troy had to go into dreamspace to communicate with them to tell them when the Enterprise would be sending them hydrogen fuel spit out of the red parts on the front of the naccells (which are apparently ramscoops somehow)?
Yes, but it wasn't another Universe; both the NCC-1701D and the alien vessel were in an astrophysical phenomenon known as a "Tychen's Rift" [sic] (whatever that is) which inhibited the formation of Warp-Fields. They needed a high energy interaction of some sort to disrupt the rift phenomenon to get free (both vessels) (and the Enterprise was unaware of the existence of the other vessel initially (due to the Rift), except by telepathic means). Each vessel supplied a partial component for the reaction.
Right...
So, maybe it isn't all used by the Jump Coils. Also, if water is such a top notch coolant why do we have all those industrial liquid nitrogen tanks all over Earth, hmmm he said snarky like, maybe the temps involved require the chill of L-Hyd. (And now aramis comes along and whips out some basic science and makes me look like an idiot.
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Maybe, it could be it isn't just used for coolant, we got the SOM using it for a Jump Bubble during transit and some here in this thread proposed it was used by squirting it into J-space to soften the transition.
So, maybe it isn't all used by the Jump Coils. Also, if water is such a top notch coolant why do we have all those industrial liquid nitrogen tanks all over Earth, hmmm he said snarky like, maybe the temps involved require the chill of L-Hyd. (And now aramis comes along and whips out some basic science and makes me look like an idiot.
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Sure, other reasons than coolant might do better. Though not any that doesn't allow all the hydrogen to be used before transition, because drop tanks. The one about softening the transition is mine, and it's the one that I'm championing. It's also one that hasn't been adopted by any of the official publications.
Because they're even better but also (I believe) more difficult/dangerous to use. Water I know for a fact is fairly safe to handle. But if you want something even better than water, I won't object. Indeed, I suggested a custom-designed phase change material as a possibility.
Hans
salochin999
SOC-13
Does all the fuel *burning* take place before entering jump space?
The fuel in its original form is all used up to create the jump bubble and enter jump space but maybe all those megatons of hydrogen energy in the jump bubble provides the power in jump space?
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edit: i appreciate this is pure hand waving btw; it's just a question of whether it is plausible *enough* to keep the suspenders of disbelief up.
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So, maybe it isn't all used by the Jump Coils. Also, if water is such a top notch coolant why do we have all those industrial liquid nitrogen tanks all over Earth, hmmm he said snarky like, maybe the temps involved require the chill of L-Hyd. (And now aramis comes along and whips out some basic science and makes me look like an idiot.
Different purposes. Water has the highest specific heat, meaning that it can absorb more total heat. Liquid nitrogen can be made and stored (and transported, piped onto things because it is liquid) at very low temperatures.
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