Well, let us agree that "side-effect-free" is what the label sais. :rofl:
And por naive customers believe it :rofl:
Well, acelration is more important in space movement than pure speed, as is what allows you to maneuver, and the time you can maintain your acceleration is the time you stay manuverable...
A paylod to fuel ratio of 1:20 means that to have a turret (1dt) you need 20 dtons of fuel. Adding to this the rocket itself, power plant, cockpit, etc...
And all of this raises the mass, needing for a larger rocket (and so more fuel) if you want to have any acceleration...
See this MgT1E light fighter, but assuming the 1.5 dtons of the drone core is the cockpit (tonnage is quivalent in MgT1E HG), so that we don't enter in AI issues (as you asked).
It is 10 dton and has a payload (power plant, cockpit and turret, excluding MD as I guess it is included in the fuel for your rocket) of about 6 dtons (so about 60% of it is payload). To have this same 6 dtons payload, wiht your ration 1:20 you'd need a 125 dton, and its endurance and acceleration will be quite lower...
You could reduce the PP if you want to arm it with missiles instead of beams, but misiles also need payload, and it lowers still more the endurance, due to ammo problems, needing to return to the carier (again, at lower acceleration) to rearm...
I'd prefer not to touch the JD behavior (fuel needs and jump distance aside, as those were in the OP), so, at least, we have some common point understood (in gmae terms) be everyone (or nearly so) here.
This aside, if you change the jump and take off gravitics, then I must agree with those that claim this is no longer Traveller, as much interesting as it may be. Probably, it will become closer to 2300AD (BTW, as a side note, ITTR this was the reason its name was changed from Traveller 2300 to 2300 AD, vecause those same changes made it nothing like Traveller and the name created confusión).
Well, my country doesn't.
But more to the point, a nuclear power plant is a minor risk compared to a beanstalk. Fukushima made a single county uninhabitable, a beanstalk disaster would at the very least kill one ore two continents when the construction collapses and is wrapped around the Earth by planetary rotation..
The fact your country doesn't have nuclear power plants does not mean it is safe from any accident. Chernobil had some efects in most Eastern Europe.
In 2300AD it is specified there were plans to let loose BC beanstalk before Kaffer attack just to avoid this kind of damage. Once done, the whole beanstak would be left adrift, with the hope of being able to recover it latter (this will be an epic and daunting task, we agree, but I guess easier than building it anew. But this is another question for another thread...).
And rockets may also be used as weapons, if a terrorist band takes a lanuching site, for what's worth...
I guess (from my engineering ignorance) that having similar masses going up and down at once would sufice, not needing to be exact the same mass in each travel (as it is assumed several capsules are at once going up and down).
Probably you could achive it by making the capsule more massive than its payload, but I'll leave this discussion for those more knowledgeable on those details than myself...
But that's something where higher tech levels can conceivably help.
Claiming higher tech advances when trying to limit its effect :devil:?
Of course, higher tech may help in this, as it may reach FTL or countergravity, who knows? It may even achieve side-efect-free drugs
.As said in my former post, I have serious Doubs at this being the standard doctrine of any military fleet, as if there's something no military want to do is sitting still.
Water is H2O, so its atomic weight is 18, 16 from the oxygen atom and 2 from the 2 hydroen ones. So, to convert your fuel to water (if I understood well that's wht the rockets do) you need a mass realtion of 8:1 among oxygen and hydrogen. So, per every metric ton of hydrogen (14 m3, or 1 dton), you'll need to carry 8 metric tons of oxygen (accepting your numbers, as I don't know, about 7 m3, or 0.5 dton). So you need 1 dton of oxygen per each 2 dtons of hydrogen in your fuel tanks, with a total mass of 18 metric tons for the 3 dtons.
f course, as you don't need the fuel for the jump, relations in OTU are not valid here, but, OTOH, as you fuel will be about about 6 times more massive, your thrust will be about 6 times less efficient in generating acceleration...
I guess recovering them will be more a problem than launching them (thoug some initial sped may help). The maneuvers for it will be closer to the Soyutz attaching to the ISS than the Nimitz having its F18 landed (I guess in Travelelr repulsors help the fighters to hit the entry to the carrier, but this need grav tech).
I'm afraid we don't talk about the same thing here...
I meant strategically. Let's see 5FW operations (be it a deep thrust or moving reserves behind the lines):
In OTU:
- In day 1 a Zhodani fleet jumps to a GG in a hostile but undefended system.
- In day 7 they exit jump, send fighter cover and begin refuelling opperations (let's say 2 days to refuel the fleet)
- In day 9 they jump again, repeating the opperation for a deep drive into Imperial territory
- This way they can jump about 3 times per month (4 weeks), and they reach their target (if they do) with several days endurance to fight
In your setting:
- in day 1 a zhodani fleet jumps to a hostile but ndefended system
- In day 7 they exit jump. Sending fighters will cost precios fuel, so it's up to the Fleet commander to decide if it's worth it. They cannot refuel, but they must stay there for 7 more days to cool down.
- I nday 14, they resume opperations.
- In the end, they perform 1 jump each 2 weeks, so being 25% slower in those strategic moves. This also gives more advantage if any scout detects them and jumps to raise tha alarm, as they probably can relly on already cooled down ships i neach system to spread the news...
Also, as they canot refuel without friendly facilities, they are likely to reach their targets low on fuel, taht wil lbe consumed quite quickly once combat opperations begin.
Other Space Military changes:
While in OTU you can asume that if ships reach the system with fuel enough for a jump (having juped under they maximum capacity), retreat is posible by jumping away if forces in system are strnguer than expected (after all your intelligence is at least 2 weeks old). In your setting, the need to cool down for 7 days means no retreat is possible.
[The fact of jump not needing fuel makes the whole BT/BR concept unfit for the setting, as the main advantage of BRs is that they don't devote most of their tonnage to fuel, something they must do in this setting if they intend to be more than space pillboxes.
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