Recent content by rinku

If heard reference to those but don't have the rules. They are supposed to be pretty power hungry though. If they're anything like the (EXOTIC TECHNOLOGY - MAY NOT EXIST IN A TU) Gravity Well Generators I wonder if that setup PLUS a Ramscoop is going to be worth it? Especially compared to the...

Probably the most important point is that if a private individual can make something with a fabricator, a large manufacturer can use the exact same methods but use economies of scale to undercut them. In addition to that, they have access to other production options that will be used if cheaper...

I wonder though... does that gimmick from whatever it's in actually stack up against just carrying extra fuel in the first place? Or for the Ramscoops, for that matter?

Could be a good setting. Not an unusual scenario in SF literature - and teased with a bit in TNE, which dropped M-Drives as such for plasma reaction drives. If you're able to jump from planet to planet you don't so much need M-Drives and artificial gravity, and can go with acceleration providing...

That is indeed a big assumption. Although for the twin ship idea you can have them at any distance, so you don't actually need to have an extended drive. Just have them closer. The table in WBH is incomplete in one important respect - it does not provide a column for under 10D, so it's unclear...

Further thought, and a correction about deep space M-Drive performance. Per the WBH rules for reduced M drive performance when far from large masses, it never drops below 0.1% because at that point you're basically using the galaxy (this could be argued against, but really it's not worth it and...

It's not acceleration though. It's volume. Higher and constant acceleration will result in higher velocity, which means further distance moved in a given time, and thus will scoop a greater amount. But it's simple to work out if you know the parameters (which we aren't really given). There's...

That could mean cast iron or brass. Everything turns liquid at some temperature.

I disagree here. In a microgravity environment such as an asteroid field or moon fuel requirements are quite low, and I would imagine you'd be setting up on a rock with what you need, maybe a dwarf planet like Ceres. If you're pre-Gravitics, reaction mass can be a lot of things; there's been...

Honestly, I think you'd do better to just leave out Fusion plants altogether, or have them as very large things. Solar and fission will get the job done. If you're going to get rid of gravitics you will need to ramp up the realism a fair bit. Something to cope with orbital dynamics would be...

It might be worth pointing out that biological solutions can be completely self-replicating, even at lower tech levels. So once you get up to advanced genetics (typically TL11-13) and being able to print creatures (TL17) that may be a better way to go than nanobots as such. There's even...

I should also disclose that I have myself felt the power of fabrication. I got a small resin printer a couple of years ago for a few hundred dollars that I mostly use to print out miniatures whose designs I purchase online. It's a game changer for an old nerd who lives in a regional city in a...

I'm now getting dieselpunk images of seedy alien roadside vendors with an alleged robot thing maker. "Customer coming! Quick! Quick! More scrap in hopper! Quiiiiick!"

Because the inverse square law will defeat it by the time you get out to interstellar space. It could be a thing to look at for system use, for sure. 100D from the sun is just under 1 AU, something like 147 million kilometres. One parsec is about 30 million million kilometres - call it 200,000...

Plastics are usually sourced from waste oil that's a byproduct of the fuel oil production process because it's cheap. It's very possible to make polymers from plant sources - you can buy resins for 3D printers that are just that. It's all just hydrocarbons; ultimately mining oil (and coal) comes...