Turrets, Bays, Spines, and Fusion+

[robject]

Oh, my.

Due to the possibility of Fusion and Fusion+, starship design in some Traveller systems may avoid the High Guard-originated twin terrors of Agility and Energy Points.

Assuming your jump drive needs a traditional Power Plant, for whatever reason, and further assuming that your M-drive can use whatever power the J-drive would otherwise be using, that leaves the problem of how to power your weapons.

If you make clever assumptions, the problem may just work itself out nicely.

Given that Fusion+ plants generate 100MW per 6 tons, or 16MW per ton, what's a reasonable power rate if weapon emplacements used them instead of those leaky power plants?

Thought experiment:

Turret

Given a one-ton triple laser turret, we've got less than half a ton to play with. Call it 0.3 tons for convenience, i.e. 0.1 ton for power for one laser, i.e. 1.6MW per laser, total is nearly 5 MW and plenty of room.

That's low power. Assume one shot fired per minute, though, and you're talking 96Mj lasers, which doesn't sound so bad.

Bay

Given a fifty-ton "laser bay", if we go along with HG and say the power requirement is ten times that of a turret gun, then we're talking a 16 MW fusion+ power plant, which displaces about 1 ton. Easily absorbed into the volume requirement of a bay.

Now, if the energy required for a 50t meson bay is 100 times that of a laser turret gun, then we're talking 160 MW. That's 10 tons in a 50-ton bay, which sounds ok. (And 320 MW @ 20 tons in a 100t meson bay).

But I'm just playing with numbers at this point.

Spine

Spines take up 500 to 1,200 times the energy of a turret gun; that is, 800 MW to 1920 MW. That's 50t to 120t for a fusion+ plant - practically a rounding error when installing a spine.

This seems to all work out.

 

[atpollard]

Does this mean that I can install a PA weapon with Fusion+ in the tail of my ship and fire continuously to generate thrust (without needing to refuel).

 

[robject]

Does this mean that I can install a PA weapon with Fusion+ in the tail of my ship and fire continuously to generate thrust (without needing to refuel).

Heh heh... well I reckon so... at least, one shot every minute or so...

 

[Icosahedron]

I think it was by matching High Guard and Striker, but I got the power of 1EP to be 250MW. Can't remember how.
Being CT, I don't hold with this fusion+ stuff.

 

[atpollard]

C. Weapons: The Striker equivalents of various spaceship weapons are given below. When conducting direct fire on the battlefield, ship weapons have the same
capabilities and fire control limits as other direct fire weapons. When firing from orbit, a forward observer is necessary.
1. Lasers: A shipboard laser is a beam or pulse laser with an input of 250 megawatts. The pulse laser has 3 lenses.
2. Plasma and Fusion Guns: A ship's plasma gun has in input of 250 megawatts; a fusion gun has an input of 500 megawatts. Neither is a rapid-pulse weapon.
A fusion or plasma gun bay is assumed, for game purposes, to contain 10 such weapons.

From High Guard (pg 24), One (1) Laser or plasma Gun requires 1 EP and one (1) Fusion Gun requires 2 EP.

1 EP = 250 MW
Q.E.D.*

Arthur


*Q.E.D. is an abbreviation of the Latin phrase "quod erat demonstrandum" (literally, "that which was to be demonstrated"). The phrase is written in its abbreviated form at the end of a mathematical proof or philosophical argument, to signify that the last statement deduced was the one to be demonstrated, so the proof is complete.

 

[robject]

QED. 1 EP = 250 MW

Being CT, I don't hold with this fusion+ stuff.

Being CT also means not being affected in any way by the 1EP=250MW equation, either.

But, since I'm working within the T5 frame, I have to worry. We've all heard that the 250MW number was somewhat arbitrary, and we know what happens when we create gargantuan power outputs: we get one of T4's major flaws -- the game gets unbalanced when a personal firearm can hit a cruiser in orbit.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, check out the "Intercepted Memos" from Famille Spofulam here:

http://eaglestone.pocketempires.com/fs/

And in particular:
http://eaglestone.pocketempires.com/fs/ditzie_97_dec_13.txt
http://eaglestone.pocketempires.com/fs/ditzie_99_mar_17.txt
http://eaglestone.pocketempires.com/fs/ditzie_97_dec_29.txt

Let me quote from that last one to show what happens when you have too much power:

Twenty five point one megacredits for a SDB mounting a
600 megajoule laser, ten centimeters of superdense, that can pull four
point three gees for four hours, and has a nuke damper and three big
sandcasters.

What this means to you is: exactly nothing. What this means to me is: probably nothing. But I am working within the framework of T5, which does have Fusion+, but does not have such a generous power output. Regardless, through a quirk of Marc Miller, it provides the possibility of nicely avoiding Agility and needing to keep track of EPs at all.

Wouldn't that be nice?

 

[Icosahedron]

QED - thanks, that was it.
Now, since I don't know what I'm talking about with either F+ or T5 I'll butt out again.

 

[atpollard]

Regardless, through a quirk of Marc Miller, it provides the possibility of nicely avoiding Agility and needing to keep track of EPs at all.

Wouldn't that be nice?

Yes, that would be very nice.
After 30 years of progress, we can finally achieve LBB 2 starship combat.

 

[robject]

Yes, that would be very nice.
After 30 years of progress, we can finally achieve LBB 2 starship combat.

Quite so...

LBB2 got some things at the 'right' level of abstraction for me.

Apparently, extending it to Fleets of Really Big Ships has proven... difficult.