mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Just a little something to add some in game rational to my gravitic heat sinc idea - DGP invented the gravitic cold berth in one of their equipment arcticles in a Traveller's Digest magazine.
Perpetual motion / heat / energy
- Thread starter Matt123
- Start date
Thunderbolt
SOC-12
Any cooling system, gravitic or otherwise would generate heat in performing its function, you only have to feel how warm the back of a refrigerator gets to see how even cooling to a measly degree or two above zero celsius gets, let alone actual freezing on a big scale.
Icosahedron
SOC-14 1K
The bottom line in all of this is: what do you want in your game?
If you want stealthy ships, invent a handwave and lose it amongst all the other Traveller handwaves; if you want glow in the dark ships, stick to thermodynamic principles and do your sums.
Realistically, ships will always be visible - at least to large sensor arrays - but it might not be quite so easy to plot the target's vector. OTOH, higher tech levels might have some masking tech, ECM or other handwaves that make stealth possible. Take your pick.
Personally, I like stealthy ships and I'm happy to live with one more handwave to achieve that.
If you want stealthy ships, invent a handwave and lose it amongst all the other Traveller handwaves; if you want glow in the dark ships, stick to thermodynamic principles and do your sums.
Realistically, ships will always be visible - at least to large sensor arrays - but it might not be quite so easy to plot the target's vector. OTOH, higher tech levels might have some masking tech, ECM or other handwaves that make stealth possible. Take your pick.
Personally, I like stealthy ships and I'm happy to live with one more handwave to achieve that.
matrix cypher
SOC-12
Hmmm interesting things to think about.
Jump flash: Its not really that important to me, use it or loose it. Its all a matter of your choice in your traveller. Its not in some versions of traveller and is in others.
Waste heat: well if fusion is supposed to be more efficient then fission, then why is it using so much fuel? Could it be that some of that Lhyd is being used for coolant? During normal space operations that extra hydrogen is used with controlled venting to cool the ship of its excess generated heat, and radiated heat is generated and mostly disposed of during jumping which could be the flash entering jump space from its massive power that is generated from the jump drive to enter jump space.
IMTU I tend to use a jump flash when entering jump space, and not when exiting (dumping waste head from initial power generation). Another note is that the large amounts of Hydrogen are used in jump space to create sort of a protective bubble in conjunction with the hull grid to stave off the effects of jump space on the people inside of the ship, and that same field and jump space could be used to get rid of any excess heat generated during jump and or normal operations. Liquid hydrogen or the hydrogen gas that is used for fuel is partially used for cooling systems and the vessel. Another thing is that when a ship docks and pays docking fees they well kinda get a system flush for atmosphere and waste system rejuvenation.
Thats my take on it. ;D
Jump flash: Its not really that important to me, use it or loose it. Its all a matter of your choice in your traveller. Its not in some versions of traveller and is in others.
Waste heat: well if fusion is supposed to be more efficient then fission, then why is it using so much fuel? Could it be that some of that Lhyd is being used for coolant? During normal space operations that extra hydrogen is used with controlled venting to cool the ship of its excess generated heat, and radiated heat is generated and mostly disposed of during jumping which could be the flash entering jump space from its massive power that is generated from the jump drive to enter jump space.
IMTU I tend to use a jump flash when entering jump space, and not when exiting (dumping waste head from initial power generation). Another note is that the large amounts of Hydrogen are used in jump space to create sort of a protective bubble in conjunction with the hull grid to stave off the effects of jump space on the people inside of the ship, and that same field and jump space could be used to get rid of any excess heat generated during jump and or normal operations. Liquid hydrogen or the hydrogen gas that is used for fuel is partially used for cooling systems and the vessel. Another thing is that when a ship docks and pays docking fees they well kinda get a system flush for atmosphere and waste system rejuvenation.
Thats my take on it. ;D
I'm finding this very interesting, possibly moot as everyone here will tailor thier Traveller how they want anyway, but one of the things I like about this setting is that it gets you every now and again asking 'why?'.
Now in this example of a Tigress (read any craft) using fusion drives to generate power for the MD, it is already radiating its excess energy via the MD. No issues here, it doesn't need to 'radiate' waste heat, its already being used/ejected. (The drives will of course shine like a neon light in the heavens).
The issues with waste heat build-up only seem to come about in a closed system, where there is no interaction with the environment outside the craft.
Given this, if you are not generating any new power, you just recycle waste heat untill your cold sinks fill up. Keeping in mind you can only recycle 'waste energy' if you have a cold sink available.
For example, theorectical Stealth Zho Fighters. Launched from a Shivva, using momentum only, doing x speed on a drift past course of an important system for recon purposes. If the Stealth fighter did not radiate energy by containing/recycling its waste heat, did not use its drives, comms or active sensors and ran off minimum energy draws from the PP. How long will its cold sinks last until it had to radiate waste energy. In addition what other sensors would pick it up?
Now in this example of a Tigress (read any craft) using fusion drives to generate power for the MD, it is already radiating its excess energy via the MD. No issues here, it doesn't need to 'radiate' waste heat, its already being used/ejected. (The drives will of course shine like a neon light in the heavens).
The issues with waste heat build-up only seem to come about in a closed system, where there is no interaction with the environment outside the craft.
Given this, if you are not generating any new power, you just recycle waste heat untill your cold sinks fill up. Keeping in mind you can only recycle 'waste energy' if you have a cold sink available.
For example, theorectical Stealth Zho Fighters. Launched from a Shivva, using momentum only, doing x speed on a drift past course of an important system for recon purposes. If the Stealth fighter did not radiate energy by containing/recycling its waste heat, did not use its drives, comms or active sensors and ran off minimum energy draws from the PP. How long will its cold sinks last until it had to radiate waste energy. In addition what other sensors would pick it up?
I'm thinking that if the PP's running you've still got a problem. If you've got a computer running on batteries, nothing but missiles as potential weapons, and vaccsuited crew in an icebox of a ship, you might get away with it. But then, wouldn't you have reflected energy from the system's star?
starships don't use huge amounts of power unless its under acceleration, jumping, or firing weapons....
under acceleration...you can lose the heat by dumping a fair amount with your reaction mass
when jumping..dump a good amount of that extra heat using all that mysterious lost hydrogen as coolant over the side.
Firing weapons?..you've got other problems..better hope you win before your radiators melt.
people seem to assume that you're running the power plant at 100% and running heating elements off it. Why is the power plant being run at 100% when all that extra power isn't needed most of the time? Surely in the far future, they've learned to 'throttle' a fusion reaction in some fashion. Generate only what you need to run stuff ( maybe have a few caps charged for dynamic headroom and power spikes ) so that the waste heat is not quite so much. Its crazy that ships constantly require as much power as a small dam can make.
While noone can hide is space...you can't assume 100% vigilance from humans...especially in lo-pop systems...especially if it costs more than a small world thinks its worth ( why 'waste' budget by keeping a close eye out past the GG?..noone's gonna be there anyways...and if its something big..we'll see it before it gets here. )
perfect knowledge is boring and we need a reason to have passive sensors ( let's broadcast seeing as everyone can see us anyways...) and ECM warfare ( okay..they see us...now lets trick him into thinking its not us..hehehehe )
under acceleration...you can lose the heat by dumping a fair amount with your reaction mass
when jumping..dump a good amount of that extra heat using all that mysterious lost hydrogen as coolant over the side.
Firing weapons?..you've got other problems..better hope you win before your radiators melt.
people seem to assume that you're running the power plant at 100% and running heating elements off it. Why is the power plant being run at 100% when all that extra power isn't needed most of the time? Surely in the far future, they've learned to 'throttle' a fusion reaction in some fashion. Generate only what you need to run stuff ( maybe have a few caps charged for dynamic headroom and power spikes ) so that the waste heat is not quite so much. Its crazy that ships constantly require as much power as a small dam can make.
While noone can hide is space...you can't assume 100% vigilance from humans...especially in lo-pop systems...especially if it costs more than a small world thinks its worth ( why 'waste' budget by keeping a close eye out past the GG?..noone's gonna be there anyways...and if its something big..we'll see it before it gets here. )
perfect knowledge is boring and we need a reason to have passive sensors ( let's broadcast seeing as everyone can see us anyways...) and ECM warfare ( okay..they see us...now lets trick him into thinking its not us..hehehehe )
It doesn't have to be a low population world. Good 'ol incompetence will do fine. Some folks may recall the incident where a German flew a small plane from Finland and landed in Red Square.
Imagine doing something like that with a Beowulf.
Renaissance Man
SOC-12
This is where the real deception lies. It's not in being able to reduce your signature to zero -- it's in using that signature to your advantage, causing sensors to see ghosts, make miscalculations and generally fail at their task. You can't really fool high TL sensors into not seeing SOMETHING.
Take the radiation of waste heat -- not radiating is just not an option. We have a couple of major laws of thermodynamics to ignore if that's the case, and that causes other inconsistencies. But there is probably a way vent that waste heat as something other than infrared radiation. If you pick a part of the spectrum that the enemy is looking at, or that he might attribute to something else, or if you radiate it as a Laser or Maser aimed directly at his sensor array, you might blind him.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Reactionless thrusters, acceleration compensators, artificial gravity, jump drive - all magic.
Just accept waste heat management is magic also.
Just accept waste heat management is magic also.
Renaissance Man
SOC-12
Well of course that's always an option.
What you handwave and what you don't is just personal preference. Role-playing is about telling the story and having fun, and if you have to gloss over a few insignificant details and suspend a bit of disbelief, so much the better. But science fiction is also about speculation, and that's what we're doing here. We're playing the what if game with science, and seeing where it takes us.
It's up to everyone to decide what to bother explaining and how to explain it -- ultimately threads like these are just about ideas. And even if you handwave it all away, it's good to know the substance of the debate.
What you handwave and what you don't is just personal preference. Role-playing is about telling the story and having fun, and if you have to gloss over a few insignificant details and suspend a bit of disbelief, so much the better. But science fiction is also about speculation, and that's what we're doing here. We're playing the what if game with science, and seeing where it takes us.
It's up to everyone to decide what to bother explaining and how to explain it -- ultimately threads like these are just about ideas. And even if you handwave it all away, it's good to know the substance of the debate.
Looks like some folks have annoyed Winchell Chung enough about heat. He's added a whole new section to his Atomic Rockets page about Thermodynamics. :lol:
EDIT: Gotta love the joke version of the Three Laws of Thermodynamics.
1.You can't win, you can only break even.
2.You can only break even at absolute zero.
3.You can never reach absolute zero.
Therein lies an interesting question, Does TL15 reach to the point where Absolute Zero has been reached and is commonly used?
EDIT: Gotta love the joke version of the Three Laws of Thermodynamics.
1.You can't win, you can only break even.
2.You can only break even at absolute zero.
3.You can never reach absolute zero.
Therein lies an interesting question, Does TL15 reach to the point where Absolute Zero has been reached and is commonly used?
Last edited:
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Traveller physics have one advantage over our real world physical laws - they can access other dimensions, hence our understanding of thermodynamic laws can't explain Traveller tech.
Gravitic research, paving the way for jump drive breakthoughs, must be the point of departure - so TL9 and beyond is magic to us.
With hindsight, once the TL9 breakthroughs are as well understood as say the laws of electromagnetism today, gravitics etc must become really easy to manipulate.
I would say TL9 is where absolute zero is reached and commonly used. Use grav tech to freeze all atomic motion and you have absolute zero on the kelvin scale.
Here's a question - can sub-atomic movement then become the new temperature scale?
Gravitic research, paving the way for jump drive breakthoughs, must be the point of departure - so TL9 and beyond is magic to us.
With hindsight, once the TL9 breakthroughs are as well understood as say the laws of electromagnetism today, gravitics etc must become really easy to manipulate.
I would say TL9 is where absolute zero is reached and commonly used. Use grav tech to freeze all atomic motion and you have absolute zero on the kelvin scale.
Here's a question - can sub-atomic movement then become the new temperature scale?
far-trader
SOC-14 10K
FWIW, iirc, the gravisonic low berth tech to which you alluded (in a Challenge issue?) was TL11. Below that low berths relied on more conventional chilling methods (again iirc). So, if I've got it right, the absolute zero common usage would be TL11.
EDIT: Though even with advanced grav tech being used to stop atomic motion and attain absolute zero you still have a heat issue. The system is going to throw off a lot of it in doing that and the heat will have to go somewhere. Now, IF grav tech is tied closely to access to another dimension(s) (say jump space) then you MAY have your perfect heat sink and everything that goes with it.
Last edited:
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
TL11 is where it is safe to use on living things, big difference there 
Artificial gravity and acceleration compensators are so trivial they are ignored in most Traveller ship building rules...
And we know that something about gravity affects jump drives when transitioning to or from jump space (I still subscribe to the original rule that a ship in jump is totally cut off from our universe).
Artificial gravity and acceleration compensators are so trivial they are ignored in most Traveller ship building rules...
And we know that something about gravity affects jump drives when transitioning to or from jump space (I still subscribe to the original rule that a ship in jump is totally cut off from our universe).
Last edited: