Not as such, no. But the "share a computer" salvage option (TCS, p. 35) suggests the possibility, when combined with the concept of drop tanks.
What the "High Guard Fix" does to canon LBB2 ships
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mike wightman
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I was thinking along the lines of building large ships by selecting two or more standard hulls until you get the displacement you want, though still constrained by the main/engineering split of the selected hulls.
Eh whatever effect you want. To me I want the big bad custom optimized warships on a logistical complication paradigm.
The LBB2 scout/military ships with unrefined fuel capacity without purifiers could be a side benefit of the rougher engineering intrinsic to the alphabet standard.
Opens up the possibility of civ ships making the modification but having to do constant adjustments that are costly in time and maybe parts. Whereas the scouts and military operate bases with spare personnel available to do this work.
Alternatively, the alphabet drive scout/mil ships may have some cheap purifier retrofitted in, or a regular purifier and make up the space difference with something like solid hydrogen storage.
Both statements are true, but it is hard to argue that two identical ships can fly side-by-side connected by a docking ring, but if I apply a Tack Weld to that ring ... both MDs and PPs suddenly cease to function.
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
Stress, whether by acceleration or other causes.
On the other hand, this doesn't seem an issue for docking clamps.
On the other hand, this doesn't seem an issue for docking clamps.
To be even clearer, the base Power plant fuel allows only for the 288 turns of burn at max drive value, thus if you ant really need to cruise large distances in system your Power fuel (i.e. maneuver fuel) needs to be a much larger tank. Hint figure out wilderness refueling at the Gas Giant.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
288 is for 10t of fuel, if you have a 6g engine and 60t of fuel you have enough fuel for 1728 turns at 1g, which is 12 days of continuous 1g thrust.
That is what you said.
What I said is 0.01*M rating*tonnage is 288 turns of thrust for that drive.
Note I assume Water as what fills the tank. 10 times that volume for hydrogen.
In '77, the "... x Tonnage" factor wasn't there. It was simply 0.01 ton (mass) of fuel per G per 10-minute turn, regardless of vessel size. Yes, it's completely whackadoodle, but that's what it was.
And it's almost certainly where the 10Td per Pn LBB2 power plant fuel allocation (again, independent of ship size) came from.
Best wishes to you for a quick recovery.
(Edited. Initially read that as "...boy is trying" and thought you were referring to a minor child, rather than yourself. My bad. Fixed.)
I know.
I coupled that with the "fusion" drive as Maneuver in that edition.
My assumption, as well as trying to avoid Rocket Math.
A lot of my choices are about making ships feel right. And Book2 fits that feel with a bit of work.
Also note in TML terms I am a Heretic as well.
Sounds right to me. Some of that is from my coming in at Second Edition so it's what I'm used to, but most of it is that LBB2 was written to create ships for the RPG, while LBB5 makes ships for its combat system. Different priorities.
Yep, you want to watch me squirm, get me started on the shape of a Freetrader or Fartrader's cargo compartment. Need a 4.5 meter ceiling, how else you gonna drive that full-size ATV in and out without histrionics. Note to meant the Air lock position on a scout class ship.
<borrows @Condottiere's routine for a moment>
Hydraulically-adjustible suspension of disbelief.
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
Depends on what you're shipping.
Personally, I would think most commercial holds would be using the dimensions of standard containers, likely with an overhead crane, rather than a bunch of crates and pallets and hand trucks.
Personally, I would think most commercial holds would be using the dimensions of standard containers, likely with an overhead crane, rather than a bunch of crates and pallets and hand trucks.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
It says 10kg per g for smallcraft.
Ships of 100t and over have a different fuel use rate.
Ships use 10,000kg over 288 turns, which is 34.7kg per g (per turn).
Spinward Flow
SOC-14 1K
Not to digress the topic any more than it has been already (go figure, eh?
) ... but my preference would be the following hybridizing system for power plant fuel:The original LBB2 fuel formula "punished small ships while rewarding large ships" with its power plant fuel formula. It was imbalanced (deliberately so) in that regard.
However, shifting over to the LBB5 fuel formula in the 1000+ ton range is the way to discard the "unfair advantage reward" of being 1000+ tons in size.
Keeping the "more punishing" fuel formula for the 100-999 ton range however makes sense as an overarching balance between standard drives being smaller and cheaper engineering sections at the expense of being less fuel efficient and therefore requiring more fuel. It helps keep the overall aggregate tonnage "relatively even" in the mid-size tonnages (400-800) used by most ACS operators. The tonnage constraints on smaller (100-400) ton ships is pretty severe, but the construction cost savings using standard drives instead of custom drives (especially at lower tech levels!) more than makes up for this "loss" in tonnage capacity ... so even that balances out (just in a different direction from other parts of the 100-999 range) when it comes to balance sheet final analysis.
Not quite. The 288 turns is a minimum, not the maximum.
288 10-minute turns is 2 days, which is typical for the combined jump-limit transits between two Size 8 worlds. The maximum is "enough for one trip" (however much acceleration that requires, which can include detours for gas giant skimming -- but at the time didn't consider worlds orbiting within the star's 100D limit) and that one trip uses all of it (to handwave the actual burn rate by averaging it out over many trips).
10Td/Pn (which is 10,000kg/G since Pn=Gs and 1Td of L-H2 is 1000kg) is almost exactly (within 5%) 1 week of full power/acceleration under the small craft fuel burn rate. This supports the longest practical normal-space trip a starship would make, since any longer distance could be covered by an in-system Jump instead.
And it's constant by Pn, rather than being a function of Pn and tonnage (that is, proportional to the power plant's energy output).
That's why I'm pretty sure the 10Td/Pn allocation is derived from the '77 small craft fuel burn rate, and obfuscated by the "effectively unlimited... accelerations" and "all power plant fuel used on every trip" rules. '81 just changed it from "one trip" to "four weeks" but left the requirement calculation unchanged.
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