Alternative to drop tanks

[HalC]

Haha, I assure you there were no cruel intentions behind the preview, I merely wished to give you a glimpse of what the book says on the matter

<snipped stuff>

Out of curiosity, what are the other two things you want/need?

I never assume evil intent on the boards - but I do tend to try and get people up to my height (I was at 6'4" in my youth) by means of leg pulling (aka teasing). If it got you to smile even a moment, I figure I'm ahead of the game.

As to what I have my eye upon? The Element Cruiser set is looking really good, but at $60, that is something I'd have to wait for. MJD has some stuff out there that I noted with approval and thought I'd try and pick up - but it has been on my back burner to buy for so long now I'd have to go looking for it.

I could say more (and did before I deleted it all), but expect a private message before too long.

 

[ChalkLine]

External inflatable fuel bladders are probably more viable and closer to the hydrogen turbines.

Or collapsible tanks. It seems that area is the problem and not mass.

 

[Condottiere]

We're trying to figure out arcane mechanics based on fictional physics, created arbitrarily decades ago.

Let's change the parameters.

We have an actual fuel tank, with default plumbing.

We fill up a giant condom contained in the tank and attach that to the pump.

If that works, fuel bladders either within a cargo hold or externally will work, as long as the correct plumbing is accessible.

 

[Anonymous]

We're trying to figure out arcane mechanics based on fictional physics, created arbitrarily decades ago.

Let's change the parameters.

We have an actual fuel tank, with default plumbing.

We fill up a giant condom contained in the tank and attach that to the pump.

If that works, fuel bladders either within a cargo hold or externally will work, as long as the correct plumbing is accessible.

Today, inflatable fuel bladders are common on small boats to extend range. edit: Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZO12rp2YyAE

Small ones are gravity powered (won't work in zero G or rough sea) but you can get better ones with a pump, and those will work.

Delivering fuel and engine oil on a boat or performance car/plane requires some engineering - even cars can experience starvation if they corner hard on a race track. The technology was sorted many years ago and I can't see why it doesn't work in space. so long as you use pumps.

 

[phavoc]

Lhyd requires low temperature as well as pressure to remain a liquid. Rockets today use pumps to move the fuel at high speed/high pressure to the engines for burning. That part has been solved with TL7 technology. Better metallurgy will allow for increased pressures, but there is going to be a practical limit.

What we have is a mish-mash of science, pseudo-science and handwavium all combined trying to explain things simultaneously with a straight face about Traveller being a SCIENCE fiction game. And therein lies the rub. There has to be an element of fiction because the science doesn't exist. MGT2 is taking the fiction part further into the space opera environment, which only makes the arguments worse. That and the new changes are, I think, haphazardly breaking canon concepts. That in itself isn't a bad thing as changing the game system is required if they expect to continue to sell newer versions. But breaking canon needs to be thought out and a determination made if breaking it makes (a) sense, and (b) is necessary to expand the game. Breaking it for a cool new one-off toy is just a bad idea.

For drop tanks we are trying to shoe-horn in something that is both canon, but also breaks the existing system. It's canon because it was present in CT. It breaks the system because none of the core ships use drop tanks in their designs. For something that can have such a beneficial effect to not be present in core designs is a giant head scratcher. In reality drop tanks have been used on military craft to extend range. Civilian craft don't use them at all. Virtually all aircraft and other vehicle types utilize an internal fuel tank, with some having additional tankage (in the civilian world you see pickups at construction sites with 50gal tanks behind the bed, and some airliners use tanks in the cargo hold to extend range). But for the most part they usage of drop tanks is exclusive to military.

In the game we've seen lots of designs to create ships with nearly all their fuel in drop tanks to maximize cargo space. However that flies smack into the canon designs as well as existing designs today. Granted tech and fuel needs are different, but as a whole we don't see it. So I think it's fair to assume we wouldn't see it as common place for the Traveller setting.

The rulesets have also changed how the tech works, further making things murkier. If you restrict yourself to one specific ruleset then the needs for fuel wildly vary, which makes the whole argument wildly varied based upon this.

 

[HalC]

That and the new changes are, I think, haphazardly breaking canon concepts. That in itself isn't a bad thing as changing the game system is required if they expect to continue to sell newer versions. But breaking canon needs to be thought out and a determination made if breaking it makes (a) sense, and (b) is necessary to expand the game. Breaking it for a cool new one-off toy is just a bad idea.

To echo phavoc a little here...

One of my pet peeves of ANY campaign background and the evolution of game systems where they start out with edition 1 doing X, edition 2 doing X +Y, Edition 3 doing X modified, Y + Z is that the changes render it impossible to achieve the original backdrop or back story that the "Campaign universe" started with.

When you have a game system that is Fantasy with Magic - the moment they introduce spells that negate the backdrop, is the moment they went too far. Case in point: GURPS MAGIC in its first incarnation could sort of support the background story of the campaign world/universe of Yrth. By the time GURPS MAGIC 1st edition comes out, it bends the history of Yrth to where it almost contradicts itself, by the time GURPS GRIMOIRE came out, the additional spells make it impossible for the events in the detailed history because the spells would negate things or make things impossible to counter or only TOO easy to counter (depending on the spell).

Whether you use GURPS TRAVELLER or not is immaterial. The rules for Missiles with GURPS TRAVELLER makes them HIGHLY Potent weapons unless you cap their damages from Kinetic Kill impacts. Designing ships to exactly match the CT methodology would not make sense with the changes imparted by GURPS TRAVELLER ship design and combat. Likewise, the rules for ship design in TRAVELLER: THE NEW ERA rendered things unlikely to hew to the original back story of Classic Traveller.

So - my job as a referee is to make sense of the rules, toss out those that I don't feel fit the mold, retain those that do, and even steal/bend/mutilate rules from other game systems that I feel make PERFECT sense as Ideas, and implement them in my campaign universe. IMTU is important to me over that of OTU simply because I do judge the value of the rules etc and make my game construct internally (at least from my viewpoint and no, I'm not GOD!!!) consistent.

The moment any game system fails to build their ships in much the same manner as CT, they potentially introduce anomalies that can distort the entire game history.

So - yeah, I avoid the use of ANY drop tanks in any of my games. The break-away Hulls, while nice in STAR TREK - just do not belong in my Traveller Universe <shrug> If you like it and want it, all the more power (and joy) to you. As the GM of your group, your job is to entertain THEM all the while being entertained by them. Any thing less than that makes the game a chore for one or more parties involved.

 

[Condottiere]

Fire Fusion Steel allowed scaling of weapon systems, and almost everyone realized that a large and fast enough kinetic kill missile superceded spinal mounts; the warhead costs practically nothing, and all you needed was a rocket motor and guidance.

My second contribution was, I think, a kilotonne fusion gun that could punch through planets.

 

[phavoc]

Fire Fusion Steel allowed scaling of weapon systems, and almost everyone realized that a large and fast enough kinetic kill missile superceded spinal mounts; the warhead costs practically nothing, and all you needed was a rocket motor and guidance.

My second contribution was, I think, a kilotonne fusion gun that could punch through planets.

Renegade Legion posited spinal mounts that DID fire kinetic energy weapons that smashed through shields and armor, and the game system also employed energy weapons. But like all kinetic energy weapons, light speed weapons beat them to their target, thus the range was limited in order to ensure a hit.

Rocket-powered weapons can be a bit of a problem to calculate damage since to be fair you would need to know if you are deducting velocity and adding velocity to the damage (which is kind of more detail for a game than you want).

There's nothing wrong with that sort of thing. There should be smaller railguns for the smaller ships just because it is cheap and effective, but also with limitations. But all weapon systems have limitations, so that's not a good reason to necessarily drop them.

Planetary bombardment weaponry is more of a PC desire to wreck worlds for fun and pay than needing to be reflected in the rules.

 

[Anonymous]

Planetary bombardment weaponry is more of a PC desire to wreck worlds for fun and pay than needing to be reflected in the rules.

the space forces are there to control planets and their population. controlling space is done to enable or prevent the primary mission of planet control. bombardment wespons are therefore the most important.

same as the air force exists to attack ground targets and the air to air element exists only to prevent or deny the former. (what's the point of a fighter jet that can't affect the ground somehow? it can't even protect its own airfield and its mission is to stop or guard ground attack planes)

 

[phavoc]

If you want to smash a planet into the stone age or render it uninhabitable, that is very easy. Modern weaponry has moved more into pinpoint precision rather than wholesale destruction. Granted an invader might easily accept millions, or tens of millions of deaths in order to subdue a planet. Though it would be nice to think that collateral damage is still something Imperial and other forces try to avoid.

 

[Condottiere]

 

[AndrewW]

Better, don't just nuke the planet but force the sun to go supernova.

 

[Condottiere]