In other words, ANNIC NOVA.
The Xboat is a HG2 design
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In other words, ANNIC NOVA.
Condottiere
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We have batteries, and they have a distinct function of storing energy, for all intents and purposes, permanently.
Collectors appear to be harvesting exotic particles, and storing them temporarily.
Collectors appear to be harvesting exotic particles, and storing them temporarily.
Ole Annie could store 'em for 60 days, first time 'round.
Collectors got nerfed in the rewrite.
MongT batteries are a combat-system mechanic for shifting power points forward in time, not a viable energy storage system. Like Jump Capacitors, but for a little bit longer.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
The canopy of the Annic Nova is 1km in diameter.
That gives it a surface area of 500x500x3 = 750,000 square metres.
Assuming the AN is in a Sol like star system at the orbit of the Earth then it receives 1.3kW per square metre.
I make that 3EPs (allowing for rounding and efficiency and keeping the maths simple) and it charges its accumulators for several days/weeks.
That gives it a surface area of 500x500x3 = 750,000 square metres.
Assuming the AN is in a Sol like star system at the orbit of the Earth then it receives 1.3kW per square metre.
I make that 3EPs (allowing for rounding and efficiency and keeping the maths simple) and it charges its accumulators for several days/weeks.
Spinward Flow
SOC-14 1K
And at the 5.2AU orbit of Jupiter it would be 48W/m2, which at 750,000m2 amounts to 0.144EP/second (or 1EP per 7 minutes/8.64EP per hour).
At the 1 AU orbit of Terra, it would be 1300W/m2, which at 750,000m2 amounts to 3.9EP/second (or 234EP per hour).
It does make a difference where you collect ...
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
I wasn't assuming a 100% efficient conversion for obvious reasons.
AnotherDilbert
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The EP (Energy Point) is a measurement of energy, not power. Energy is what you store in a capacitor, you can then use is as an amount of power over a certain time (Energy = Power × Time).
1 EP = 250 MW for 20 minutes = 300 000 MWs ≈ 83.333 MWh = 83 333 kWh.
If a solar panel charges with 750 000 m2 at ~1 kW/m2 = 750 MW it would take 20 minutes to collect 3 EP, or 9 EP per hour.
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AnotherDilbert
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As a rough estimate of how much energy is required to jump we can use the fuel consumption.
Take e.g. a 1000 Dt J-1 ship: It would use 10 Dt power plant fuel to produce 2500 MW power for 4 weeks:
It produces 10 EP every 20 minutes or 30 EP/h (=2500 MW power).
30 EP/h × 24 h/d × 7 d/w × 4 weeks = 20 160 EP from 10 Dt fuel.
It uses 100 Dt fuel to perform a J-1, but the jump fuel is burned in a faster, less efficient process. Let's estimate that to 25% efficiency.
100 Dt fuel is 201 600 EP, or at 25% efficiency 201 600 EP × 25% = 50 400 EP.
To store that in HG capacitors it would take 50 400 EP / 36 EP/Dt = 1 400 Dt. Since that is bigger than the ship itself, it's slightly impractical...
Take e.g. a 1000 Dt J-1 ship: It would use 10 Dt power plant fuel to produce 2500 MW power for 4 weeks:
It produces 10 EP every 20 minutes or 30 EP/h (=2500 MW power).
30 EP/h × 24 h/d × 7 d/w × 4 weeks = 20 160 EP from 10 Dt fuel.
It uses 100 Dt fuel to perform a J-1, but the jump fuel is burned in a faster, less efficient process. Let's estimate that to 25% efficiency.
100 Dt fuel is 201 600 EP, or at 25% efficiency 201 600 EP × 25% = 50 400 EP.
To store that in HG capacitors it would take 50 400 EP / 36 EP/Dt = 1 400 Dt. Since that is bigger than the ship itself, it's slightly impractical...
We nerfed them for T5 because we (I?) wanted them in the design system. All of a sudden they needed to not destroy the balance of play. Rule 2.
But I think they still bend the OTU. Apparently that's not off the table.
I actually liked their accumulative potential based on orbit number and star type.
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
I don't think you can measure the energy potential of exotic particles, in this particular case, since they're a substitute for hydrogen.
Kickstarting the jump drive still requires regular energy.
Kickstarting the jump drive still requires regular energy.
On purpose, if I recall. "Exotic particles" (perhaps unlike midichlorians) were added in order to not destroy the balance of play. Rule 2.
Let's see if my email box has any of that discussion (doubtful).
ACS draft, 8 February 2010.
All the discussions I see is over how to resolve canopy degradation. There must have been a conversation over the Collector charging near a star (as in the above draft), but by 2011 that connection was dropped and the Collector became an anywhere device.
The other issue (and I'm not sure if anyone really touched on it back then) was that given the canon example (Annic Nova), the canopy area could theoretically support the power requirements for Jump if it were a perfectly-efficient energy absorber (and had some way to store that energy) -- but only under LBB2 '77. The implied power requirement to sustain the Jump field during the week in Jump that comes out of the '80 and later "Pn=Jn" rule makes that impossible. At the stated size, the canopy simply does not intercept enough stellar radiation to provide for a week's worth of power at Pn=Jn.
If it's gathering more energy (or particles, or whatever) than are present in the slice of space that the canopy covers, it has to be getting that energy from something other than stellar radiation, so perhaps it doesn't need stellar radiation at all.
I really like the idea of using stellar characteristics and orbit distance to calculate charge rates. The "1D weeks" rate from DA1 seemed to approximate that, but didn't really provide a mechanism for it other than maybe to keep track of what the 1D roll was for each star system encountered. Then again, at that point in the game's development, stellar characteristics weren't part of worldgen, so...
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AnotherDilbert
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Technobabble for "magic". There are no "exotic particles" with enough energy to harvest in outer space.
But then we have psionics...
Quite so. In the end, it's about Loren's Three Laws.
G. Kashkanun Anderson
SOC-13
Not necessarily. Traders & Gunboats came out at the very tail end of 1980, and the '81 rules revision was released in the first half of the next year. I would guess that some version of the '81 rules were already being used in house at GDW by the time the first XBoat specs came out, even if we hoi polloi out in the hinterlands were unaware of it at the time.
I am always struck by the implication that the two versions of jump drive installation appear to imply two different in-universe approaches to jump theory application. In Book 2, each drive creates a field whose jump distance is associated with its relative strength in comparison to the apparent mass that it is encompassing, with the higher the ratio, the further you can go (to a point). In High Guard, however, the drive (and its field) are built to fit the ship. One allows for much speedier FTL at lower Tech Levels, but is fuel hungry and peters out very quickly in regards to how big you can build your ships at any Tech Level (and/or how far they can go), while the other is much more technologically restrictive as per jump level, but is also better at fuel consumption and comes with the obvious advantage of being able to field much larger -- and more powerful -- FTL vessels.
Which is maybe why they called it an XBoat.
Hey, before you argue the wrong point with me on this, I am generally on board with the 'starships need a power plant' faction. But the first line in that Book 2 quote is what makes the point. The second line is just a tautological distinction, and those are too easy to run circles around to hang a hat on.
Spinward Flow
SOC-14 1K
There's a fallacy of thinking involved there. Allow me to highlight it.
We're told that Power Plant-n must be equal to or higher than either Jump-n or Maneuver-n (whichever is larger) as the minimum.
LBB5.80 includes Break Off by Jumping rules that essentially amount to allocating 2% of Tonnage*Jump-n over 1-2 combat rounds in order to jump at the end of the combat round. This means that starships where Pn=2*Jn can (theoretically, if there are no other EP consuming systems) Break Off by Jumping at the end of the first combat round (otherwise it might take them 2 combat rounds). Some starship designs will not have sufficient excess power capacity to power their weapons, computers and maneuver drives while also devoting sufficient excess EP to powering up the jump drive to jump at the end of the first combat round.
Other than that specific circumstance, there are no other mentions of Jump Drives requiring ANY amount of EP during jump (at least, not in CT, which is LBB2.80=HG2 re: thread title). Indeed, conspicuous by its absence is any explicit mention of jump drives needing defined power plant EP at all ... aside from the Break Off by Jumping during combat maneuver.
So the implication is that sufficient power plant output is required to INITIATE jump (Break Off by Jumping during combat) but there is no follow up of any kind stating that power plant output must be maintained "at full blast" during the week spent in jump.
Besides, what is all of that "full blast" power going to be spent on?
Weapons? In jump space?
Screens? In jump space?
Maneuver drive ... in jump space?
Computer ... okay, that one I'll give you. The computer will almost certainly need to remain powered up and anything over model/2 requires EP.
Basically all of the EP demand systems would get powered down while in jump space (weapons, screens, maneuver drive) pending breakout back into normal space at the destination. Keeping the power plant "burning full blast" without that much load on it seems farcical and stupid, just on its face.
Now, the one factor that makes sense in all of this is the notion that the Power Plant-n essentially defines the load capacity of the power bus used by the starship. Without sufficient Power Plant-n the power bus simply isn't up to the task of providing sufficient supply for the demand from the maneuver drive and/or jump drive. Kind of like trying to plug too many extension cords into a single wall socket sorts of things where too much load through "not enough pipe" creates hazards and failures.
So the Power Plant-n defines the maximum load tolerance for the power bus on the craft. So long as the demand for power is below that threshold, everything works fine.
Jump drives have a "peak load" condition required to initiate jump, but once the starship is in jump space there simply isn't the same continuous demand for power output from the power plant.
Think of it this way ... the tradition of Jump Dimming was done because almost 100% of the power output was needed to initiate jump, but the dimming of the lights aboard only lasted for about 2 minutes ... not the entire week spent in jump space. There's a REASON why diverting 99.9999% of the power to the jump drive for 2 minutes was sufficient for the technology of the day when the tradition began, rather than needing to be sustained for the entire week spent in jump space.
Three guesses as to why that might be (and the first two don't count because I've already given you the answer).
The reason for the assumed power draw is that starships and nonstarships have identical power plant fuel requirements, despite starships being in jumpspace for about half the four-week period that the fuel allocation supposedly covers. If the power plant could power down below Pn=Jn while in Jump, the fuel requirement for starships would be lower than that for nonstarships.
This does not apply to MgT or '77 rules.
This does not apply to MgT or '77 rules.
AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 1K
For simplicity (I assume) fuel consumption is not related to power consumption. The power plant is always on and has the same fuel consumption regardless of current power draw.
HG'79, p17-18:
HG'79, p17-18:
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
That system ensured a lot of starships had homogeneity in performance, twos in scoutship, threes in mercenary cruiser.
Wait. Read literally, that says fuel consumption (in HG1) is 1%/month regardless of Pn.
