Power Plants

[snrdg082102]

Can I have a power plant that runs the weapons like the spinal mount in addition to the main power plant in engineering?

If I can have one then I would count them as engineering crew, right?

 

[BytePro]

Seems doable ...

 

[snrdg082102]

Evening BytePro,

Seems doable ...

I'm hoping my idea is doable. Basically here is what I'm thinking the weapons systems that require have a dedicated power plant. This power plant could in an emergency be connected to either the maneuver drive or jump drive.

Thanks

 

[Gray Pennell]

There is nothing stoping you from having more than one power planet. I like the idea because it creates a redundant system.

 

[far-trader]

In the RealWorld such solutions require additional engineering though to support switching etc.

Add that to your additional power plants and it gets a thumbs up* from me

* that and Cr1 will get you a large cup of Coffee Juice (tm)** (retail price Cr1 )

** WARNING!! close proximity to a large cup of Coffee Juice (tm) may cause spontaneous death or more serious side effect, stay at least 1.5m away, do not allow more than ONE large cup of Coffee Juice (tm) per 1.5m area to avoid criticality and explosive plasma exposure

 

[snrdg082102]

Howdy Gray Pennell,

There is nothing stopping you from having more than one power planet. I like the idea because it creates a redundant system.

TCS introduces the back-up power plant, drives, and computer. The back-up engineering systems, at least I think this is right, do not require fuel tankage and must be smaller or equal to the primary.

Thanks for the reply.

 

[snrdg082102]

Evening far-trader,

TCS, which is where my idea of a weapons power plant came from, doesn't mention the need for the extra switching for a back-up engineering plant. But the idea of the switching is a sound one.

Is that civilian, Army, Air Force, Coast Guard, Marine, or Navy coffee?

In the RealWorld such solutions require additional engineering though to support switching etc.

Add that to your additional power plants and it gets a thumbs up* from me

* that and Cr1 will get you a large cup of Coffee Juice (tm)** (retail price Cr1 )

** WARNING!! close proximity to a large cup of Coffee Juice (tm) may cause spontaneous death or more serious side effect, stay at least 1.5m away, do not allow more than ONE large cup of Coffee Juice (tm) per 1.5m area to avoid criticality and explosive plasma exposure

 

[aramis]

Officially, no, you can't, Tom. The alternate would need to be able to run the whole ship, as you're only allowed to have one PP operating at a time in either Bk2 or Bk5 systems.

However, you could just increase the size overall and define it as two separate chunks of plant...

 

[snrdg082102]

Drat another real world idea blasted all to heck. Now I can't build my space going USS Enterprise CVN 65 analog with all the reactors.

Can I buy you a cup of far-traders coffee?:devil:

Thanks for the reply aramis, but not for dashing my plans

Officially, no, you can't, Tom. The alternate would need to be able to run the whole ship, as you're only allowed to have one PP operating at a time in either Bk2 or Bk5 systems.

However, you could just increase the size overall and define it as two separate chunks of plant...

 

[mike wightman]

The really stupid thing is that you can't throttle down the power plant to produce less EP when you are not in combat.

According to the rules the power plant is operating at peak combat output 24/7. That's a lot of energy being wasted - boy do those magic jump space energy sinks have their work cut out.

MT did introduce rules for having multiple power plants or for throttling down in order to conserve fuel.

The same can easily be adapted to HG but are house rules and not TCS legal.

 

[rancke]

Drat another real world idea blasted all to heck.

Depends. Are you designing a ship to enter into an RAW TCS campaign? Then the rules do indeed overwrite common real world sense. Otherwise, whenever a rule conflicts with "reality" I consider the benefit of sticking to the rule vs. sticking to common sense, and I often find that common sense wins.


Hans

 

[McPerth]

The really stupid thing is that you can't throttle down the power plant to produce less EP when you are not in combat.

According to the rules the power plant is operating at peak combat output 24/7. That's a lot of energy being wasted - boy do those magic jump space energy sinks have their work cut out.

MT did introduce rules for having multiple power plants or for throttling down in order to conserve fuel.

The same can easily be adapted to HG but are house rules and not TCS legal.

As mainly a MT player, I agree with most you say. Either solution (standar + combat boost PPs or throttling down PP) would save fuel, mostly for those ships armed, but not intended for combat (armed merchants).

In any case, I see not that easy to adapt to HG, as you have only one digit for the PP in your USP. This is a case (IMHO) similar to the possibility of having diferent clases of the same weaponry (e.g. PA spinal, bays and turrets) on the same ship, that HG don't allow (and has no provision to represent in its USP) while MT does.

 

[mike wightman]

For the USP - which is used during combat - you have the combat rating of the power plant and its full EP output.

But on the extended ship description you can write the fuel endurance/EP during routine, non combat, operations.

 

[snrdg082102]

Morning Rancke2, aka Hans,

Depends. Are you designing a ship to enter into an RAW TCS campaign? Then the rules do indeed overwrite common real world sense. Otherwise, whenever a rule conflicts with "reality" I consider the benefit of sticking to the rule vs. sticking to common sense, and I often find that common sense wins.


Hans

Thanks Hans for the reply,

Actually I was thinking about the possibility of using multiple power plants for HG designs, which now appears not to be legal. Of course I could still design hulls with multiple power plants but not, which I haven't done in a while anyway, put them out on the Traveller boards/forums for member review.

The last design I posted, if I recall correctly, was over at the GURPS JTAS Design forum about 5 years ago.

The real world isn't the only example of multiple power plants on space vehicles, the Honor Harrington series has ships with more than one fusion plant. David Drake's book Voyage Across the Stars also mentions ships with multiple plants.

Have a good one.

 

[BytePro]

Legal?

Well, maybe the rules lawyers will quibble with your designs... but non-standard designs are common, even (especially?) in canon. Marc Miller's Annic Nova, for instance. Nothing anyone designs will be canon unless Marc says so, but that never stopped others from sharing their creations and folks from enjoying them.

Besides, if it fits - as aramis said - just design it with the combined total rating and then declare they are in separate units... crossover feeds are built in (rules don't defined individual wiring, buttons, etc...). In fact, nothing rule wise explicitly states that a power plant isn't a combination of reactors - the rules are largely just game mechanics, after all.

If your ship is special, post your own rules. Ex: if x EP are dedicated to weapons and not available for other systems without some Engineering check and delay...

 

[snrdg082102]

Howdy BytePro,

Problem is that I'm gun shy when the feedback on the designs did not exactly encourage further sharing, so I put stuff together, save, and after a while forget I did them.

Keeps me out of trouble most of the time anyway.

I've come to the conclusion that some of the earliest canon designs were made with various test sequences and variant rules and then not corrected for the final draft which of course got amended.

Thanks for the reply, much appreciated.

Legal?

Well, maybe the rules lawyers will quibble with your designs... but non-standard designs are common, even (especially?) in canon. Marc Miller's Annic Nova, for instance. Nothing anyone designs will be canon unless Marc says so, but that never stopped others from sharing their creations and folks from enjoying them.

Besides, if it fits - as aramis said - just design it with the combined total rating and then declare they are in separate units... crossover feeds are built in (rules don't defined individual wiring, buttons, etc...). In fact, nothing rule wise explicitly states that a power plant isn't a combination of reactors - the rules are largely just game mechanics, after all.

If your ship is special, post your own rules. Ex: if x EP are dedicated to weapons and not available for other systems without some Engineering check and delay...

 

[Carlobrand]

Depends. Are you designing a ship to enter into an RAW TCS campaign? Then the rules do indeed overwrite common real world sense. Otherwise, whenever a rule conflicts with "reality" I consider the benefit of sticking to the rule vs. sticking to common sense, and I often find that common sense wins.


Hans

Precisely. If you're playing in a setting where everyone's expecting the same set of rules, you follow the rules. On the other hand ...

Trillion Credit Squadron, p38, The Outer System: "Fuel may be conserved while waiting by lack of maneuver; the ship's power plant will consume fuel as if it were a power plant - 1, regardless of its true value."

Now, I would say that gives an argument for operating the plant at a lower rating than full - as for example if you're in jump-space or otherwise not feeling the need to power your energy-hogging weapons. If you as game-master want to use that to come up with fuel rules that allow you to design in-house ships with a bit more arms/armor and a bit less fuel for your particular universe, and if your players don't have a problem with it - or even if you want to battle with friends who agree to the rule mods - then go have fun with it. However, I wouldn't spring this one out of nowhere and try to argue it as canon on someone who prefers a more conventional game. It is very clearly more a possible implication than an explicitly declared ability.

 

[PFVA63]

Hi

I hope this isn't getting too far off track but although I really like/liked CT when if first came out, over time as I've grown older, more and more holes in the rules seem to become apparent. And, power plants are one of the ones that really stick out to me.

After having looked at how some modern boats and ships handle things, one thing that I've noticed is that they often have multiple small plants that can be run either independently or together to provide different amounts of power for different situations.

As such, for normal crusing, maybe only one or two of the small plants would be online, to provide for general operations and lighting, ventilation, and cooling etc (or in the case of a starship, I guess these would be classed as general navigation and life support, etc). In the event of battle though more of the plants could be brought on line, providing the "surge" needed for weapons and additional sensors/fire control etc.

In addition to this, because not all plants would necessarily be on line all the time, this would allow for "maintenance" to be conducted on the offline plants while underway.

Also, its my understanding that while the total amount of power requred by a "ship" for everything running at oncemay be one number, the actual total rating of all the smaller plants onboard may actually be a bit less than this because it is not likely that all power consuming items will be on all the time. Specifically, for an ocean going ship for instance you may not have both heating and air conditioning going at the same time, and you may also restrict some "life suport" stuff during "battle stations" etc. For a "starship" I could see assuming that some stuff required while in "jump space" may not be needed in "regular space" and vice versa, and that perhaps during "battle stations" some "life support" may be restricted, etc.

Overall, I guess it might be nice if maybe Traveller design and combat could be modified maybe a little to reflect some of these ideas.

Pat

 

[BytePro]

Modify away. Since my first ship design (LBB2 in the early '80s) - I've used multiple power plants... after all, the first paragraph in the Introduction of LBB1 (second edition at least) ends with '... after all, no set of rules can totally define the universe and how it works.'

That is canon.

You can just call the 'power plant' an abstraction of multiple plants working together as needed and nothing really has to change in the rules unless you want them to. To take full advantage of the gaming opportunities, allow destruction to not include all power plants and perhaps rolls to apply damage to particular plants till they are individually destroyed. Pretty minor rule mechanic changes there... makes ships less susceptible to power plant failures. Which can be 'balanced' by adding detail to relate a given power plant to particular systems - such that letter reduction or destruction would lower the functioning and/or rating of said systems. (My take on what the OP was after.)

 

[robject]

I understand that that's exactly what MegaTraveller did -- localise power usage so that the optimum designs were ones which had power plants for subsystems, allowing you to throttle back when those systems weren't in use.