TL12 in High Guard 1st edition (no tons, Cr500,000). Can't recall what other versions said about them if they did.
I could be wrong about TL 9. Maybe it is TL 12.
As far as I recall the idea of special capacitors was dumped after HG1, it's not part of HG2, and no TL is mentioned as required. Which doesn't really help in setting them in the Imperial setting but clearly they can be made and used at TL9 (regardless of the year) if going by HG2 (not the setting but kind of a critical element of it).
But was it dumped because it's a complication that isn't worth paying attention to in an RPG game or because special capacitors didn't exist and never did exist? For their existence, we have background evidence in the form of that newsbrief. Since that is viewpoint writing, it could be wrong, but is there any reason to believe so? The absence of evidence of siginificant drop tank traffic in the Marches argues that there's some reason drop tanks aren't in extensive use. That it's a relatively new invention is IMO a much more plausible explanation than that "They" have kept the technology from being used from one end of Charted Space to the other for 3000 years.
I know we disagree here but I say bunk to drop tanks never being used in the Imperium prior to 1105. The news brief (is it not) is about using it on civilian commercial shipping and the catastrophe that results?
Prior to ca. 1075, actually. As I said above, I think there's evidence that the first
Gazelle Class ship was built a few years earlier than 1084.
The news brief is about
extending (emphasis mine) a drop tank connection from "the interior" to Regina.
097-1105 Regina/Regina (0310-A788899-A)
By TNS Staff Writer
Officials of the General Shipyards on Regina announced that it has completed negotiations with Tukera Lines to locally manufacture L-Hyd drop tanks for use on high-capacity commercial vessels. General will assemble components at its more modern facilities on Pixie (0303-A1001030-D). The first production examples are expected to be available within six months, at which time Tukera Lines will begin high capacity service from the interior. Component assembly will be carried out at General's more modern facilities on Pixie (0303-A100103-D).
L-Hyd drop ships have only been in service for the last dozen years in the interior, being made possible by recent advances in the field of capacitor engineering, a joint press release explained. Commercial vessels equipped with the new generation of long-storage jump capacitors carry jump fuel in specially designed L-Hyd drop tanks in excess of their rated tonnage. Upon conversion of the fuel to the massive energy required for jump, the drop tanks are explosively jettisoned through the use of break-away connections and explosive bolts. Jump is executed when the remains of the tanks are a safe distance from the vessel.
A spokesman for General Shipyards explained that local yards are not yet capable of manufacturing the long-storage capacitors required for the process, but that production of the drop tanks is possible, thus allowing the high capacity starships of the Tukera Lines to begin service to the Regina subsector.
L-Hyd tanks are not reusable, and thus increase the absolute cost per jump. However, experience has shown that the increase in cargo tonnage resulting from the elimination of internal J-fuel storage more than makes up for this, the press release explained.
The joint press release concluded by stating that local manufacture of L-Hyd drop tanks marks the dawn of a new era of commerce and prosperity in the Regina subsector. Following the announcement, common stock in Oberlindes Lines plummeted 27 points on the Regina exchange before trading was suspended. Officials of Oberlindes Lines were not available for comment.
Who's to say the IN hasn't been (more or less) safely using them in some designs since ever?
Because if it has been around since the Terran Confederation reached TL 12, they would have been in use by the time the Imperium was founded.
And I'll reverse the question. Why should the IN have been using drop tanks since ever?
And only in 1105 is the hide bound bureaucracy finally convinced that maybe the technology is sufficiently mature and safe that civilian commercial ships can be trusted to use it. And then the first company to use it goes and proves the proponents wrong...
Not for the first 12 years. The
Trimkhana Brilliance disaster didn't happen until 1106.
186-1106 Regina /Regina
By TNS Staff Writer
A spokesman for Tukera Lines announced indefinite suspension of high capacity commercial service to the Regina Subsector pending outcome of the official investigation of the Trimkhana-Brilliance tragedy.
Less than a month ago, the 800-ton liner Trimkhana-Brilliance was lost with 217 lives due to a jump capacitor discharge immediately prior to jump. While all four survivors of the disaster are still under intensive medical care, interviews with the one surviving crew member indicate that the capacitor discharge may have been due to a delay in jump after full charging due to a failure of the port inboard L-Hyd drop tank to separate completely.
A Tukera Lines press release stated that a team of company engineers would be "taking a long hard look at General Shipyards' quality control standards."
In the wake of the announcement of high-capacity service suspension, General Shipyards common stock fell 34 points in the Regina exchange before exchange officials suspended trade. Oberlindes Lines stock closed up 5 3/8.
The accident may have put the kibosh on further expansion of the existing routes for a while, but you'll notice that Tukera is quick to point the finger at General Shipyards' quality control, not the drop tank system itself. I doubt very much that Tukera has any intention of giving up such a lucrative technology.
...or that's what you're supposed to think. It's obvious that someone sabotaged the works so that civilian commercial shipping won't have drop tanks. Think how badly that would upset the status quo of commerce.
Yes, because "They" would be really upset if the megacorporations made even bigger profits, let alone if the tax base in general was increased.
Hans
). But just what that means is open to interpretation. Personally I think the time an empire reaches a given TL is when it reaches a certain threshold in terms of worlds capable of building ships of that TL and/or a certain concentration of civilian ships of that TL. I also have a theory that the Imperial Navy classified both jump-5 and jump-6 drives as military secrets and kept them under wraps for as long as they could (in the face of corporations and member worlds all clamoring to be allowed to use it). So the jump-5 drive might have been invented a couple of decades before it became declassified and it might have taken another couple of decades for the drive to become ubiquitous. Likewise for the jump-6 drive.
