CT Only: Sponge Plating

[Enoki]

Does anyone know how the Bonded Superdense is supposed to work as part of a structure? I know how it has that charge running through it to pull the collapsed atomic structure even tighter, but what about when it has the power cut off?

Does it turn back into regular superdense? Does it have to have a continuous current of how much? Can it only be used on vehicles and ships because it needs a lot of power?

It's a small thing, but this is the place for debating small things into big ones.

I would assume bonded super-dense uses carbon nanotube technology and requires only a small current that causes the these to contract or expand like a Chinese finger puzzle. This would give the super-dense a structure like rebar within it that strengthens the whole. If the power goes off, you still have a very strong structure, stronger than super-dense alone, but not as strong as the variety with charge applied.

Or, maybe you apply the charge during manufacture, and it remains in the proper state afterwards sort of like how you do with a post tension concrete slab. Then a charge isn't needed in use.

 

[sabredog]

That makes sense. It otherwise would be like polarizing the hull plating for a little extra strength in the Enterprise series. Not that you maybe couldn't do that in Traveller...

I have long integrated a cheap n' dirty way to let small ships in a small ships in the shill ship arena of my campaign to have some limited armor/shield capability.

Assuming the ship was built to TL standards that would have bonded superdense available, then the ship can gain a temporary armor of 1 or 2 (2 points if you have a power plant higher than required for your drive ratings) for a few rounds of combat by sending an overcharge through the hull plating. The engineer rolls to keep it up each time it is hit by something using his skill as a positive DM on a role of 8+. Each time the ship takes a hit (multiple or single makes no difference) the roll for success increases a point. Eventually it will fail but it adds a little drop of tension to the combat pot and gives the players more to do and think about.

That is on the understanding I had about superdense from Striker back in the day when it came out. There wasn't anything that came out about how it worked in ship hulls, nor better info on how even it worked when bonded or not or if if it could be strengthened further so I figured, yes it can.....if you have a good ship and power for it. Plus, I figured that it might even be something that could be integrated alongside the Jump Grids.

There's a lot of handwavium there but the 80's were rich in that because games were so much less constrained by inhouse details and rules and any detailing had to be made by us. Which was fun and the norm anyway.