2300AD, thoughts and wishes

[Jame Rowe]

One thing: Make. The. Fusion. Power. Plants. MORE! EFFICIENT!

Pardon the yelling, but I want to make sure ... not that I'm heard, but rather that I'm replied to.

Fusion power plants in 2300AD are sealed units, with enough fuel to last the 10 year lifespan of the reactor. They also have a minimum size/output, and require a lot of crew. Not as many as a fission plant, though. Fission plants come with removable fuel assemblies, and are generally good for one year before the fuel package needs to be removed and replaced.

Ah. So they are actually more efficient - in terms of fuel, which is what I was referring to.

Crew is a different issue, which I hadn't given a thought to.

Why make fusion power plants more efficient?
I guess I should read up on how Mongoose Trav handles them, but I'd think its not a matter of how efficient the fusion process is. It's more a matter of how efficiently the available technology can harness the power that *is* released and how much of that energy is lost through waste heat and other forms of radiation... and even noise.

If your objection is the insane 'fuel' usage, then the excess 'fuel' might be considered to be coolant that is lost overboard for the sake of thermal control ( which none of the rules really handle well, imho ).

The rule, at least in the Spaceships chapter of MG:TMB, is that a power plant requires a certain tonnage of fuel for two weeks usage; earlier versions of Trav, e.g. Classic, used certain tonnage per four weeks usage. My thing is that the MGT version of it isn't as efficient as the CT version. Your reaction of it being excess coolant is something I'll consider.

I'd have thought shouting, having a little tantrum, and generally behaving like a spoiled child (with a rather unjustified sense of entitlement to immediate answers that are to your liking) is likely to get you ignored rather than generating the sensible reply and then related conversation you're obviously seeking.

This sort of statement is even less likely to get a reasonable conversation going, and therefore makes me wonder why I'm replying to it.

 

[BP]

...Fusion power plants in 2300AD are sealed units, with enough fuel to last the 10 year lifespan of the reactor. They also have a minimum size/output, and require a lot of crew.

Sealed = require a lot of crew? Most things are sealed due to lack of maintenance requirements and/or exposure safety.

Fission crews to service robotics for fuel handling/spent fuel removing, inspections and control/monitoring is reasonable. Fission rad products tend to be very hard on the workings (embrittlement, etc).

Fusion - especially hydrogen only, if one so chooses - minimizes/eliminates these issues. Though thermal/field effects should be accounted for (from plasma creation/confinement), the mechanisms are solid state and - assuming not using electro-mechanical generators (more direct neutron thermal to electric) - such should have very low personnel requirements.

 

[kermit]

As a long time fan of 2300AD the idea of a yet another re-boot excites and frightens me. 2320AD was OK but QLI mangled it, no fault of Colin's. And although I dislike some of the slant Colin put on the universe, especially in regards to Earth, I did like how he left the Twilight War a bit vague. That being said, the game is set up so that the Twilight War is, at least until the Kafer Wars, the most important event in Earth's history. This needs to be retained.

As for adding an asteroid strike, I'm all for it. I did something similar in my own 2300AD universe to explain the increased interest in space, but I also included a more heavily colonized Sol system. (Remember it was over 100 years from the beginning of post-Twilight manned space flight till the colonization of Tirane. Get some more Mars colonies and other habitats out there.) The placement of the asteroid strike can occur before a nuclear exchange, read Harold Coyle's Dead Hand for an idea as to how this could happen or Niven's Lucifer's Hammer for a post-strike exchange between China and the USSR. Or it could come at the tail end of an already occurring conflict as the smack down that wakes humanity up.

Also, please limit the mechs. This is not Heavy Gear or Jap Anime.

Keep the 19th century balance of power/ colonialism feel to it as well. If alternative history if needed than go for it. I always thought that having the major powers colonize a planet with a lower tech alien race on it, in a manner similar to Africa or Mars as per GDW's Space: 1889, would be a great idea.

Limit the Transhuman and Cyberpunk elements. Make the game about people not technology. Mix up the global politics a bit, but keep the same feel. This does not need to be a direct re-hash of 2300AD but keep the same feel and themes.

Any way, good luck Colin.

Benjamin

 

[steffworthington]

there doesnt need to be a new impetus for space. Mankind has Greed.

 

[Lord High Munchkin]

Or out-and-out cupidity!

 

[EDG]

there doesnt need to be a new impetus for space. Mankind has Greed.

What would mankind be "greedy" for that's out in space?

 

[steffworthington]

Before the Jerome Drive: Information and prestige, a distraction from problems at home.
After the jerome Drive: Resources, breathing room, prestige, money, information, and a distraction from problems at home.

 

[BP]

... a distraction from problems at home.
... and a distraction from problems at home.

Sounds like you could use a vacation


Space is such an extreme and foriegn environment, I think some serious motivation would be needed. Personnally, I'd love to visit - but to live there I would want it to be, well, more like Earth. I.E. a whole lot less dangerous - air, radiation, impacts, heat dissappation, freezing, water, solar flares, muscle degeneration - things I'd rather not have to worry too much about.

By definition there ain't much of anything in space to be greedy about (unless there were like 80 billion invincible people on the planet). Granted there are resources on other bodies, but getting them takes more energy/effort than its worth (from a greed standpoint).

The most likely motivation probably involves fear. Asteroids aren't a bad start - though the threat would probably have to be even more real to really see results (i.e. some real destructin with seemingly guaranteed future disaster - think L.A., Mexico City, Tokyo, etc. - large numbers of people live in these places despite the known high risks of natural disaster). Serious biological (rapidly mutating viruses or other competition) are probably the best bet. Everything else (even oxygen depletion and atmosphere destruction) are still best addressed on Earth with its tremendous resources.

 

[EDG]

I think I have the ideal motivation to go into space: Ideas.

There's no room for new ideas on Earth. No room for new social models. No room for new approaches. But if you go to space, there's plenty of room. You can make your "ideal society" out there in the black, with nobody to bother you or persecute you about it.

I think a lot of colonial history in the past has been all about this. Whether it's "people wanting to start a new life" or "people fleeing persecution", they're all looking for the same thing - room to do what they want to do.

And it doesn't necessarily have to be anything "benevolent". It could be anything from a society of clones, to a society of AIs, or a human society run by AIs, or a human society with some really strange (or threatening/frightening) social concepts, or whose religion that means that as a cultural group they have been almost driven to extinction on Earth. Such groups couldn't survive on Earth because their neighbours would fear them, or it would be against some law or other, or the social inertia to accept them is too great to overcome, or they'd be wiped out by fanatics arrayed against them. But if they went up into space and built a base on some obscure rock in the asteroid belt, nobody would even know they were there.

The other social motivation is exile. Australia, after all, was founded as a prison colony, a place to send all of Britain's undesirables that was out of sight and out of mind. And space offers lots of room to get rid of undesirables.

 

[GJD]

I think a couple of serious drivers would be population pressure in the developed world and the resurgence of a "frontieer spirit".

By population pressure I mean less that there is not enough room for everybody, although that is certainly true for some countries, but that some people just need to "get away" from the hurly-burly of (future) modern life.

The frontier spirit is a real driver as well, I think. There just aren't any places left unexplored ion Earth. The chance to be the first person to see a mountain range, or a river or even a whole planet should not be dismissed. And the opportunity to carve a home out of the wilderness is just as strong in the 23rd century as it was in the 18th or 19th, or any time in human history.

G.

 

[Lord High Munchkin]

For an example, the Puritans (sorry to go on about them again, but they really are the archetypical example).

The Puritans fit this concept very nicely as an unpleasant, extremist bunch of undesirables who once thrown out of all available Protestant countries, simply had co choice but to move on to the New World.

Such things have happened in history, they are likely to happen in space when technology even gets remotely able to allow such movements. OK they will not be the first out, but once able to cobble together the necessary finance, they will be amongst the early adopters. Also due to their "higher calling" they also will not generally wait for governmental permission—"God(s) spoke to us, and commanded that we do it!".

 

[EDG]

For an example, the Puritans (sorry to go on about them again, but they really are the archetypical example).

The Puritans fit this concept very nicely as an unpleasant, extremist bunch of undesirables who once thrown out of all available Protestant countries, simply had co choice but to move on to the New World.

Such things have happened in history, they are likely to happen in space when technology even gets remotely able to allow such movements. OK they will not be the first out, but once able to cobble together the necessary finance, they will be amongst the early adopters. Also due to their "higher calling" they also will not generally wait for governmental permission—"God(s) spoke to us, and commanded that we do it!".

This is exactly what I was talking about in my previous post - people will want room to practise their religions, or new ideas for society.

 

[The Chef]

unfortunately Greed is the big mover for business. without business then spaceflight is too expensive for any country to maintain. without a profit margin then business will not be involved. space must be seen as worth the investment.

 

[BP]

Wonderfull discussion...

Freedom/Social Safety and Greed - pushing to the stars...

Peoples who have fled/pioneered over formidable boundaries (mountains, oceans) could only do so in large numbers when the means existed. Governments moved them or Business provided transportation. Otherwise - cheaper methods have been employed - i.e. genocide, secret societies, revolts.

The problem of expanding into space is the tremendous environmental extremes that are almost none-existent on Earth. This requires technology and an inordinate expenditure of resources (manpower/materials). Without nano-tech this is unlikely to occur unless greed somehow becomes involved, or need, or well grounded fear.

[To date, some of our primary reasons for going into space have included - foremost - spying on each other (fear), communications (mainly military), pre-emptive knowledge (explore external threats), bragging rites, pure research, entertainment, earth studies, economic research.]

 

[EDG]

Business could provide the first motivations - the most likely incentive IMO is mining He3 on the moon for fusion reactors on Earth (obviously fusion tech has to be developed first!).

Once it's possible to get to the moon cheaply (a beanstalk or skyhook might be a viable option to get beyond the atmosphere at least), then industry can begin on the moon. That industry could include shipyards - it would be much easier to launch ships from the moon given the lower lunar gravity (and easier to build a shipyard there than in the middle of cislunar space). Once you have shipyards mass-producing spacecraft, then it shouldn't be ridiculously expensive to get one.

 

[Gamerguy]

I did some snooping around the internet and found that 90% see 2300AD this way:

"A spinoff of the classic Traveller series. It plays in a very early stage of the timeline where humanity has just colonized 29 planets. All action takes place in postulated planetary systems around the actual stars within 50 light-years of Earth."

Sounds like fun honestly. I gotta try a "Ranger" game this way. The quote was from a major RPG website.

8)

 

[EDG]

"A spinoff of the classic Traveller series.

*sob*

 

[The Chef]

i can see why people would think this way. its a space adventure created by the same people who made traveller and uses most of the same dynamics. for years i felt this way too

Chef

 

[Vile]

I have to admit that's what I thought when I first bought it, although my excuse was that it was still called Travellr 2300 then. I remember thinking, "there's nothing here which says it's pre-OTU, but surely it must be?" :lol:

Sadly I never learnt better, because I only ever bought the original boxed set and only found out about 2300AD fairly recently.

 

[Lord High Munchkin]

It does need to say in big letters "2300AD is not the prehistory for the 3I", otherwise this will go on and on.