Spinal Mount Power Up and The Single Girl

[kilemall]

So, been trying to come to grips with the whole idea of how the HG power plant can suddenly turn Superman, charge up a jump capacitor faster then a speeding meson, burn through tons of fuel doing so, then go back to being a mild mannered Clark Kent fusion workaday Joe.

To use a Type S example, the average Type S power plant produces 2 EP a turn. The jump-2 drive has 1 ton allocated as a jump capacitor, storing 36 EPs to expend all at once for the jump.

That means the little putt putt power plant can suddenly generate 18x the power output at 20 tons of fuel and charge that capacitor up within a turn, and this is routinely done for jumps.

SO why can't this be weaponized?

Gedanken example, let's scale up to a 10,000 ton 'light' cruiser, mounting a type F spinal PA, with a PP of 8 yielding 800 EPs, enough for the 600 EP spinal plus other systems.

If I ran this power plant up for a Jump-2 let's say at the PP 2 level, it would consume 20% of the mass of the ship in jump fuel and charge the 100 tons of jump capacitor, or 3600 EPs. This is 'normal'.

So why couldn't I add in another 50 tons of capacitor tied into the weapons instead of the jump drive, crank up the PP to 'just' jump-1 levels of output at 10% mass jump fuel, generate 1800 EPs which I route to the extra capacitors, and then fire my 600 EP spinal mount an extra three times that turn? Sounds like the Black Globe capacitors can drain off power by firing things, why not my extra power up?

Puts a whole new spin on those L-Hyd tanks if you can use them to multiply your big gun firepower multiple turns, doesn't it?

Secondly, the Type S example shows he can charge the capacitor up in approximately 6 hours (assuming 2 EPs per turn charging a 36EP capacitor and no maneuver or firing). Capacitors don't blow up until they are overcharged, last I read.

So, if I don't need to run all this cooling/hyperactive fusion plant to get critical jump power, why do I have 20 tons of fuel usage? Jump bubble?

I have ideas as to Expository Engineering (fluffy state), but I'd like to hear your takes and explanations on these rules conundrums.

 

[kilemall]

What's Single Girl got to do with it?












Absolutely nothing.

 

[Nathan Brazil]

Charging up "the Main Gun" also looks cooler when done SDF1 style as well. It also give those pesky fighters something to do, if they could just get thru the armor.

Or if that moon, ("thats no moon, thats a space station") with several people throwing levers and pressing buttons before that peaceful planet is destroyed. It takes a lot of time to throw all those switches.

Well in an ATU anyways...

 

[savage]

The single girl is the engineer.
I like the capacitors. Always handy if we use them.

 

[Condottiere]

Seems more feasible in older editions, in Mongoose you tend to run into brick walls.

I'm going to guess overheating, since they only support one set of capacitors for a double shot.

 

[nobby-w]

So, been trying to come to grips with the whole idea of how the HG power plant can suddenly turn Superman, charge up a jump capacitor faster then a speeding meson, burn through tons of fuel doing so, then go back to being a mild mannered Clark Kent fusion workaday Joe.

[...]

I have ideas as to Expository Engineering (fluffy state), but I'd like to hear your takes and explanations on these rules conundrums.

In another game (a homebrew one I wrote somewhere about 1990) I had a concept called an open-mode reactor.

In normal operation a fusion reactor feeds heated plasma into some sort of heat exchanger mechanism, driving a turbine, or maybe some sort of solid state energy conversion device (essentially an uber-petiter). This is known as a closed-mode reactor, and the power output is largely limited by how much heat you can dissipate without cooking your reactor.

Note that the actual reactor core typically used in ballistic missile submarines is famously 'about the size of a garbage can' and is good for 10's of megawatts with a convenient supply of seawater to dump waste heat into.

An open-mode reactor uses a fusion mechanism to heat up reaction mass, which is vented outside through a magnetohydrodynamic generator. This neatly dumps all the waste heat, allowing the reactor to run at a much higher output. The downside of this is that the reactor goes through lots of reaction mass.

You could quite easily fit this to the large jump fuel consumption of a Traveller jump drive - running your reactor in open-mode to power the J-drive for a week. It would also be a neat fit to being able to power large energy weapons, with reaction mass limiting the endurance of the reactor.

In Striker and its descendants, power plants tend to be much, much heavier than the energy weapons you're powering with them - but they have practically unlimited endurance because of their low fuel consumption. Retrofitting the notion of a much more powerful open-mode reactor with limited endurance due to its reaction mass consumption might work quite well.

 

[savage]

Seems more feasible in older editions, in Mongoose you tend to run into brick walls.

I'm going to guess overheating, since they only support one set of capacitors for a double shot.

That was my thought. I didn't review the concept in MgT, T5 rules but the early systems work.

 

[Selandia]

...
To use a Type S example, the average Type S power plant produces 2 EP a turn. The jump-2 drive has 1 ton allocated as a jump capacitor, storing 36 EPs to expend all at once for the jump.

That means the little putt putt power plant can suddenly generate 18x the power output at 20 tons of fuel and charge that capacitor up within a turn, and this is routinely done for jumps.

SO why can't this be weaponized?

Gedanken example, let's scale up to a 10,000 ton 'light' cruiser, mounting a type F spinal PA, with a PP of 8 yielding 800 EPs, enough for the 600 EP spinal plus other systems.

If I ran this power plant up for a Jump-2 let's say at the PP 2 level, it would consume 20% of the mass of the ship in jump fuel and charge the 100 tons of jump capacitor, or 3600 EPs. This is 'normal'.

So why couldn't I add in another 50 tons of capacitor tied into the weapons instead of the jump drive, crank up the PP to 'just' jump-1 levels of output at 10% mass jump fuel, generate 1800 EPs which I route to the extra capacitors, and then fire my 600 EP spinal mount an extra three times that turn? Sounds like the Black Globe capacitors can drain off power by firing things, why not my extra power up?

are those capacitors of the same "type"?

LHyd are supposed to be recent addition to the OTU for capacitors capable to hold charges long enough for them to work were not R&D until "recent OTU time". That holding time at that charge level might be very short.

On the other hand, do we consider that Weapon grade capacitors have "charge and hold" capability? How much more than what is currently needed for jump?

Yes The answer will have an impact on Neuart's stargate project, the reverse angle from yours: use of weapon grade capacitors for jump

have fun

Selandia

 

[kilemall]

In another game (a homebrew one I wrote somewhere about 1990) I had a concept called an open-mode reactor.

In normal operation a fusion reactor feeds heated plasma into some sort of heat exchanger mechanism, driving a turbine, or maybe some sort of solid state device (essentially an uber-peliter). This is known as a closed-mode reactor, and the power output is largely limited by how much heat you can dissipate without cooking your reactor.

An open-mode reactor uses a fusion mechanism to heat up reaction mass, which is vented outside through a magnetohydrodynamic generator. This neatly dumps all the waste heat, allowing the reactor to run at a much higher output. The downside of this is that the reactor goes through lots of reaction mass.

You could quite easily fit this to the large jump fuel consumption of a Traveller jump drive - running your reactor in open-mode to power the J-drive for a week. It would also be a neat fit to being able to power large energy weapons, with reaction mass limiting the endurance of the reactor.

In Striker and its descendants, power plants tend to be much, much heavier than the energy weapons you're powering them with - but they have practically unlimited endurance because of their low fuel consumption. Retrofitting the notion of a much more powerful open-mode reactor with limited endurance due to its reaction mass consumption might work quite well.

A nice bit, lots to think about.

A third power generation mode would be thermogenic materials, generating electricity directly from heat, presumably far fewer moving parts. If thermogenic materials do not end up absorbing/converting heat, they may be used as a supplemental power generation source wrapping reactor vessels and pipes feeding downstream primary generators.

Not sure that CT/HG covers that in that you definitely have the L-Hyd tank thing dropping which implies jump fuel use all at once, or at least implies it's all loaded into the jump drives prior to jump and the capacitor is about rapid discharge to initiate the jump.

The point I am bringing up though still holds even in your scenario and with capacitors written out/ignored- if the power plant has the capability to generate more power for short jump capacitor bursts OR week-long powering of jumps, then the critical activity of combat would strongly suggest using that same capacity to power more weapons and/or generate more shots with the same weapons in the same single-shot time frame.

 

[kilemall]

are those capacitors of the same "type"?

LHyd are supposed to be recent addition to the OTU for capacitors capable to hold charges long enough for them to work were not R&D until "recent OTU time". That holding time at that charge level might be very short.

On the other hand, do we consider that Weapon grade capacitors have "charge and hold" capability? How much more than what is currently needed for jump?

Yes The answer will have an impact on Neuart's stargate project, the reverse angle from yours: use of weapon grade capacitors for jump

have fun

Selandia

I'm not following the LHyd recent argument, CT on has always had LHyd as the primary fuel, and HG has the capacitors built into TL9 with a snippet about how they are part of jump drives and have not been able to be improved upon, so a base element of the jump technology from 'the beginning'.

I'm just going by what HG has, which is

the same capacitor type is used for both jump and BGG power absorption with X power capacity,

a known design intention of high power storage and rapid discharge,

additional capacitors outside of the jump ones have the ability to power maneuver and weapons,

and explosions upon over charging (which implies jump is a dangerous time, don't want power spikes that last 5 seconds).

The wiki entry for jump implies that capacitors are only stable for 30 minutes, which seems reasonable and fits my engineering drama motif (get that jump drive or power routers online in 20 minutes or there won't BE a ship).

IF I were going to differentiate, I would tend to go with capacitors built into EVERY high power discharge energy weapon (the HG power value informing how big each capacitor array is), which requires discharge within 30-60 minutes or instability and explosion.

Then batteries for longer term storage but which can only hold it's TL in EPs (so TL10 batteries are 10 EPs per ton, TL 15 15 EPs per ton etc.) with slow absorption and discharge making them less useful for BGG.

I suppose I should use the term energy cell since battery has a specific meaning.

I want the energy cells for things like survival solar power charge up, restart reactor drama, stealthed ships with powered down reactors for sneaky insertion and ambush ships, etc.

I would also tend to treat the main power plant as the defined capacity of the power routing system. Damage reduces that capacity, and destroyed power plants can't route anything.

If one wants ships to be able to run on batteries for anything past life support or to use more stored weapons power then the power plant is rated to normally route, then build in separate power routing and conduits from the alternative capacitor/energy cell array, which incurs additional cost and tonnage.

 

[GypsyComet]

I think the Canon idea that the Vilani once had to shut down everything but the air to get into jump actually does indicate that the capacitors have seen improvement, as that is now just a tradition. It could also be seen as just more efficient power plants, but that feeds back into the opening question. If the capacitors were leaky or explody back in the day, you might need to throw everything the power plant can give at the jump drive while also keeping it cool (another way of explaining the high "fuel" requirement) until the poorly understood physics finally decide to open the way to jumpspace. The assumption is that the Vilani never figured it out until another Major Race came along, though I'm not sure that detail actually has a date on it.

 

[whartung]

The gaping hole in Canon is what is all of the fuel for. Especially if you have capacitors. If you have capacitors, then charge time is disconnected from the discharge speed and power necessary to run the drive.

Just like a xenon flash, that whine is the capacitors filling as quickly as they can. But since they're capacitors, you can choose to fill them more slowly. The charge rate doesn't matter as much as the capacity.

This problem of course is that it smashes the fuel dependency of the Jump cycle, since a normal power plant can charge the capacitors just as well as the the drives internal power plant, albeit at a slower rate.

It also allows other avenues for charging (notably things like solar, etc.).

Finally, it seem clear that your ship has not only a normal dedicated power plant, but an extra one, a rather powerful one, stuffed in the jump drive that might be jury rigged in case of emergency.

But we don't hear much about that either.

 

[GypsyComet]

The gaping hole in Canon is what is all of the fuel for. Especially if you have capacitors. If you have capacitors, then charge time is disconnected from the discharge speed and power necessary to run the drive.

Maybe. There were conflicting technological explanations early on that found their way into actual rules. This wasn't helped by the often sparse approach to technical writing seen in GDW games (AHL, I'm looking at you). With Zucchai Crystals, it was stated that the discharge time was somehow linked to the charge time, so if you needed a quick but precise discharge you also needed a quick and precise charge.
Then there was the Kinunir and the Annic Nova. The AN has what T5 now calls Collectors, IIRC; take you time charging and jump when full. The Kinunir (and High Guard of course) had the first Black Globes, which stated that the Globe could charge your jump capacitors (assuming many combat turns), allowing a jump if you happened to get them charged to full without exploding.

Finally, it seem clear that your ship has not only a normal dedicated power plant, but an extra one, a rather powerful one, stuffed in the jump drive that might be jury rigged in case of emergency.

But we don't hear much about that either.

In editions with no firm ties between the power plant and the jump drive, the jump drive is certainly a hot fusion plant in addition to the physics bender equipment.
In editions that make the connection explicit, the jump drive might still have a plant in it, but it would be more of a booster or finisher.

 

[Condottiere]

Jump drives, capacitors and power plants are a different issue, though it reflects on a certain inconsistency in power distribution mechanics.

But with Mongoose, a lot of it seems abstract, so you can't pin down one mechanic and manipulate it by changing one or more factors in the equation.

 

[nobby-w]

[...]

Not sure that CT/HG covers that in that you definitely have the L-Hyd tank thing dropping which implies jump fuel use all at once, or at least implies it's all loaded into the jump drives prior to jump and the capacitor is about rapid discharge to initiate the jump.

I never liked that rule, largely because it doesn't make a lot of sense. For a TCS campaign it's fine though, as it comes with the downside that you've thrown away your drop tanks.

 

[kilemall]

Charging up "the Main Gun" also looks cooler when done SDF1 style as well. It also give those pesky fighters something to do, if they could just get thru the armor.

Or if that moon, ("thats no moon, thats a space station") with several people throwing levers and pressing buttons before that peaceful planet is destroyed. It takes a lot of time to throw all those switches.

Well in an ATU anyways...

I image Star Blazers/Space Cruiser Yamato's wave motion gun more then anything for spinal mount shots.

 

[kilemall]

Couple more thoughts-

1) On the power plant/waste heat question, the natural place to dump it would be the maneuver drives, which if they have any reaction drive aspect to them would happily use that power.

2) I don't know HOW I am going to use it specifically yet, but I just know I'm using it- got to have metallic hydrogen used as a technology/exotic material in the mix-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallic_hydrogen

Needs insane amounts of pressure presumably delivered by the development of gravitic manipulation and/or material science, acts as a superconductor/superfluid, potentially can do all sorts of strange electromagnetics, just sounds cool as hell.

Note the LiH6 version at lower pressures, perhaps the optimized capacitor's main component.

3) Muon Fusion- now this stuff is interesting for our purposes, possibly as a practical fusion if future tech creates a cost-effective muon source, but more importantly, look at that compression- the hydrogen isotopes end up 207 times closer together then normal hydrogen, so correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't that fit our criteria for cramming massive amounts of fuel into our jump drives?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muon-catalyzed_fusion

The thing has a life of no time at all, but perhaps for the instant jump is initiated, and/or due to jumpspace being 'outside time', the muon hydrogen plasma is used for jump bubbles and lasts 'long enough'.

Or maybe we go with the open-ended fusion reactor solution proposed earlier in this thread.

The jump drive has this separate muon fusion reactor that pumps through massive amounts of fuel into a tiny-sized chamber, generating energy for a very power hungry jump field process, the capacitors are for powering the jump in one blinding release, and the main power plant's percentage of power rated to equal the jump drive is needed to prime the muon source generators to kick it all off.

Then the metallic hydrogen component could be used as the Traveller equivalent of the 'plasma conduit'. Or still used as handwavium in the jump process.

On a practical basis perhaps it can only be set up to travel tens of meters to handle all that power, which explains why it isn't routinely used for spinal mount power-ups as running 3-6x as much total power generated in 20 minutes compressed into less then a second is too much for normal power transmission technology and it would take a LOT of expensive equipment to manage the routing, and you would have to use the capacitors due to the fast charge aspect.

Possibly dangerous way to get power out to the rest of the ship or do main reactor starts.

The muon reactor and jump drives would be hardwired to each other so a new power routing that draws off a little power at a time would have to be built in, the capacitors would have to hold the juice long enough to be useful to the rest of the ship which might be, probably should be a big safety question mark, and you would have to have some sort of safety lock that stops the power-up process from automatically engaging the jump.

Still leaves us with the question, why can't you just let the regular power plant accumulate the capacitor power? Does the jump require that extra few seconds of high-EP output in addition to the capacitors? Wouldn't it be better to just have more capacitor instead of all that fuel?

 

[whulorigan]

3) Muon Fusion- now this stuff is interesting for our purposes, possibly as a practical fusion if future tech creates a cost-effective muon source, but more importantly, look at that compression- the hydrogen isotopes end up 207 times closer together then normal hydrogen, so correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't that fit our criteria for cramming massive amounts of fuel into our jump drives?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muon-catalyzed_fusion

The thing has a life of no time at all, but perhaps for the instant jump is initiated, and/or due to jumpspace being 'outside time', the muon hydrogen plasma is used for jump bubbles and lasts 'long enough'.

Muon-fusion would be a fine source of "cold-fusion" (relatively speaking). The primary contemporary problems are as you have noted:

1) Efficient Muon-generation source
2) The short half-life of muons
​

An additional problem is that muons have a tendency to attach themselves to the Helium end-product as well, so the effective number of muons catalyzing the reaction decreases with time.

Given Traveller technology, however, the above are not necessarily problems.

1) Muons are clearly being created in large quantities (either intentionally or as a byproduct) in Meson guns. It ought to be far easier to create them at lower non-relativistic energies for a non-weaponized purpose.

2) Muons can be stabilized radioactively as an outgrowth of the technology that allows nuclear dampers and meson screens. Damper-mediated fusion would b able to utilize muons freely over long periods.

3) It should be possible to "ionize" the muons out of the fusion products and reuse them, when damper mediation is employed.
​

 

[kilemall]

Muon-fusion would be a fine source of "cold-fusion" (relatively speaking). The primary contemporary problems are as you have noted:

1) Efficient Muon-generation source
2) The short half-life of muons
​

An additional problem is that muons have a tendency to attach themselves to the Helium end-product as well, so the effective number of muons catalyzing the reaction decreases with time.

Given Traveller technology, however, the above are not necessarily problems.

1) Muons are clearly being created in large quantities (either intentionally or as a byproduct) in Meson guns. It ought to be far easier to create them at lower non-relativistic energies for a non-weaponized purpose.

2) Muons can be stabilized radioactively as an outgrowth of the technology that allows nuclear dampers and meson screens. Damper-mediated fusion would b able to utilize muons freely over long periods.

3) It should be possible to "ionize" the muons out of the fusion products and reuse them, when damper mediation is employed.
​

Well certainly it is a candidate for our little power source that could, but just as interestingly it fits the criteria for using all that jump fuel, which may be power generation related, maaaaybe more for the jump itself.