Far Scouts Reimagined - Ramscoops and Collectors

[Vormaerin]

Does it actually say in MgT that the black globe bleed off can power the jump drive? I know that's explicit in CT, but I don't think that's anywhere in MGT2e. It just says that the jump capacitors can hold energy and be discharged at a certain rate.

Regardless, it is one of those things in CT that (along with Collectors) imply that the power for a jump can be held indefinitely, despite this not actually being possible if the capacitors are powered in by something other than a Collector or Black Globe.

 

[Arkathan]

Does it actually say in MgT that the black globe bleed off can power the jump drive? I know that's explicit in CT, but I don't think that's anywhere in MGT2e. It just says that the jump capacitors can hold energy and be discharged at a certain rate.

Regardless, it is one of those things in CT that (along with Collectors) imply that the power for a jump can be held indefinitely, despite this not actually being possible if the capacitors are powered in by something other than a Collector or Black Globe.

In the MgT2 High Guard 2016, XBoats had power plants that produced 20 points of power and batteries that held 40 points of power. The Jump drive required 40 points of power.
If batteries can charge a capacitor and enable a jump, why couldn't a charged capacitor do the same? And if you want to nitpick it, Require batteries. Bleed the capacitors off into the batteries and then use the batteries to charge the capacitors.

 

[Vormaerin]

But then you can pre charge your jump drives. Which opens up a bunch of other questions. Like why can't you safely use drop tanks by charging the jump capacitors and then just moving away from the drop tanks? Why do you even need fuel at all? Why not charge the capacitors or the batteries or whatever in port? Or while travelling in jump?

And if you say "ooh, hydrogen balloon", then why can Collectors, Antimatter Power Plants, and Black Globes power the jump drives without said hydrogen? Or do you have to have all the jump fuel even if you use black globe power to do it?

 

[Condottiere]

Probably because the capacitors are also spark plugs.

Though actually, it has been implied there are alternatives to capacitors, just never been specified what they are, and if there are differences; otherwise, I would have replaced the capacitors with batteries, considering they are cheaper.

 

[Arkathan]

But then you can pre charge your jump drives. Which opens up a bunch of other questions. Like why can't you safely use drop tanks by charging the jump capacitors and then just moving away from the drop tanks? Why do you even need fuel at all? Why not charge the capacitors or the batteries or whatever in port? Or while travelling in jump?

And if you say "ooh, hydrogen balloon", then why can Collectors, Antimatter Power Plants, and Black Globes power the jump drives without said hydrogen? Or do you have to have all the jump fuel even if you use black globe power to do it?

I never say hydrogen balloon, unless commenting on recent "how we say it works" discussions.
Bottom line is that we had a second edition Mongoose ship that got charged up by tenders and jumped on battery power. This opens the door for every other alternate jump catalyst. The old capacitors relied on quick charging. What could be quicker that pew-pew absorption and shrapnel being converted at E=mC^2 upon contact with a black globe?

Charging the capacitors in port could be dangerous. An accidental or intentional creation of a jump bubble in the middle of both volatile materials and sparky materials would be disastrous when a volume of starport roughly 1.5 to 2x the ship size suddenly disappears from normal space, allowing the fuel an sparks to mix.

 

[Condottiere]

Depends on whether the port exerts a perceivable gravitational force.

And, of course, if the jump drive actually has the capacity to enclose all surrounding material and jump.

 

[Vormaerin]

X-boats by themselves are not a problem because they still require the fuel. The power for the J-Drive is just enough to trigger it and that can come from whatever source. Whether you go old school and the J-Drive burns the fuel or you have the hydrogen balloon or even with T5's "overclock the power plant" concept since the P-Plant is still involved.

If the Black Globe still needs fuel to jump, just negates the need for the power plant to divert energy to the jump drives, no problem. But if you can jump without fuel that way and, especially, if you can buy more capacitors to store additional jumps of energy, you have fundamentally altered how jump drives work.

It's the collectors that are the problem, as always. They are the thing that makes it possible to jump without fuel, because afaik, black globes don't. Frankly, I think the "additional capacitors" terminology instead of batteries is just because ship scale batteries weren't a thing in 1980.

 

[Arkathan]

And yet it persists.

 

[Arkathan]

Depends on whether the port exerts a perceivable gravitational force.

And, of course, if the jump drive actually has the capacity to enclose all surrounding material and jump.

I was talking about taking a piece of the station with it, regardless of a misjump - and most starports are in a gravity well.

 

[Vormaerin]

And yet it persists.

Sure, because people just copy/paste older text when they don't think of a reason to change it.

It literally makes no difference whether it is a "extra capacitor" or a "battery" until you get collectors involved.

Extra capacitors just store energy (36pts per dton in CT, not sure in MgT2e). They don't change anything about the function of the jump drive because the limit is fuel. Collectors are just poorly defined because their "fuel" apparently goes in the capacitors?

 

[Arkathan]

A ram-scoop collects hydrogen. Fuel.
A collector collects "exotic particles." Handwavium or Unobtanium.

 

[Condottiere]

It's a question of the impact of a technology on the game.

One of the things, weird as it seems, that has been impressed on my mind, is the scene in the original Battlestar Galactica, where the Viper patrol discovers empty Cylon tankers.

The difficulty of obtaining fuel in certain regions seemed to be part of the game mechanics, but my task, as I perceive it, is to provide the Confederation the means of out manoeuvring the technologically superior, and much better resourced, Imperium.

Ramscoops provides that opportunity.

Collectors would be an interesting, unique artefact.

If you can replicate it, and combine it with ramscoops, plus onboard manufacturing facilities for ship components, then you pretty much don't need to dock at any starport, since the starship would be completely self reliant.

 

[MasterGwydion]

It's a question of the impact of a technology on the game.

One of the things, weird as it seems, that has been impressed on my mind, is the scene in the original Battlestar Galactica, where the Viper patrol discovers empty Cylon tankers.

The difficulty of obtaining fuel in certain regions seemed to be part of the game mechanics, but my task, as I perceive it, is to provide the Confederation the means of out manoeuvring the technologically superior, and much better resourced, Imperium.

Ramscoops provides that opportunity.

Collectors would be an interesting, unique artefact.

If you can replicate it, and combine it with ramscoops, plus onboard manufacturing facilities for ship components, then you pretty much don't need to dock at any starport, since the starship would be completely self reliant.

Except for the raw materials for the manufacturing facilities.

 

[Vormaerin]

A ram-scoop collects hydrogen. Fuel.
A collector collects "exotic particles." Handwavium or Unobtanium.

Yes? And they are completely unrelated to each other. Both are jump fuel. If you are using the collector, you don't need to use the hydrogen. If you are using the hydrogen, you don't need to use the collector. Neither have anything to do with capacitors.

The original poster's comment was about getting additional capacitors to extend the jump range. That was the question also: where does it say that you can do that? This led to the additional capacitors comment about black globes. I don't think that's actually true that more capacitors means more jump capacity. The jump capacitors and the collector's accumulators (mongoose term) do not seem to be the same thing. T5 says the collector stores the exotic particle fuel in the canopy itself. Annic Nova in CT also calls them accumulators.

The only reference to a use for additional capacitors seems to be storing bleed off from a black globe, though there's no particular reason they couldn't do other energy storage things. However, energy is basically never the problem with jumping, fuel is. Capacitors are not fuel storage.

Accumulators (or the canopy) store the fuel for collector based jumps. Hydrogen fuel tanks store the fuel from the ramscoops.

Jump capacitors can be charged from any energy source. Collectors do not provide energy (except in Annic Nova, all subsequent versions specify it is just jump fuel). So it does not make sense that jump capacitors and collector accumulators are the same thing.

As far as I am aware, there are no rules anywhere about getting more accumulator storage. I'm not saying it is impossible, but it is not related to the rule on High Guard pg 42.

 

[MasterGwydion]

Yes? And they are completely unrelated to each other. Both are jump fuel. If you are using the collector, you don't need to use the hydrogen. If you are using the hydrogen, you don't need to use the collector. Neither have anything to do with capacitors.

The original poster's comment was about getting additional capacitors to extend the jump range. That was the question also: where does it say that you can do that? This led to the additional capacitors comment about black globes. I don't think that's actually true that more capacitors means more jump capacity. The jump capacitors and the collector's accumulators (mongoose term) do not seem to be the same thing. T5 says the collector stores the exotic particle fuel in the canopy itself. Annic Nova in CT also calls them accumulators.

The only reference to a use for additional capacitors seems to be storing bleed off from a black globe, though there's no particular reason they couldn't do other energy storage things. However, energy is basically never the problem with jumping, fuel is. Capacitors are not fuel storage.

Accumulators (or the canopy) store the fuel for collector based jumps. Hydrogen fuel tanks store the fuel from the ramscoops.

Jump capacitors can be charged from any energy source. Collectors do not provide energy (except in Annic Nova, all subsequent versions specify it is just jump fuel). So it does not make sense that jump capacitors and collector accumulators are the same thing.

Page 83 of High Guard describes it as a "charge that is released in a single spike to power the jump drive"

I have just done a read-over on the Collectors. They are dumb. Store a few "exotic particles" on your ship and never have to carry jump fuel again and be able to do many many many jumps without the need to refuel. Since it is already determined that these particles can be stored, why not store 100 jumps worth of the fuel? Design spaceships with Collectors that do nothing but collect "exotic particles" to sell to other ships for jump. This is literally "universe-breaking" at TL-14. Imagine every Imperial Warstarship no longer losing 40% of its volume for jump fuel as well as being able to jump again within minutes of arriving in a new system. Universe-breaking.

As far as I am aware, there are no rules anywhere about getting more accumulator storage. I'm not saying it is impossible, but it is not related to the rule on High Guard pg 42.

 

[MasterGwydion]

I just did the math. A 500,000-ton Collector could power 1 J-4 for 4 Sector Fleets every week.

 

[Arkathan]

But then you can pre charge your jump drives. Which opens up a bunch of other questions. Like why can't you safely use drop tanks by charging the jump capacitors and then just moving away from the drop tanks? Why do you even need fuel at all? Why not charge the capacitors or the batteries or whatever in port? Or while travelling in jump?

And if you say "ooh, hydrogen balloon", then why can Collectors, Antimatter Power Plants, and Black Globes power the jump drives without said hydrogen? Or do you have to have all the jump fuel even if you use black globe power to do it?

Look, first you go off over in-game examples of not needing hydrogen, and then you argue that the hydrogen/something else is mandatory. There are in game examples of needing fuel and there are in game examples of not needing fuel. There is a legacy method of powering jump via capacitors and there is no current prohibition on the old practice.
Since you cannot seem to decide which way you are arguing, tell you what. You rule zero your game the way you want it and I'll ignore the situation.
That's step three in the event of a radioactive spill. They always taught us the acronym SWIMS. But all anyone ever remembers is the joke version.

Smile
Walk Away
Ignore the situation
Maintain a low profile
Stab the next watch.

Just as well, as I'm not sure the actual version isn't still classified. Besides, this version has universal applications.

 

[Condottiere]

You're going to need hydrogen for the power plant.

Solar needs very careful management.

Though, not that much maintenance.

 

[Sigtrygg]

A ram-scoop collects hydrogen. Fuel.
A collector collects "exotic particles." Handwavium or Unobtanium.

Ramscoops are not possible with real physics.

So they are both handwavium based on unobtainium.

 

[Vormaerin]

Look, first you go off over in-game examples of not needing hydrogen, and then you argue that the hydrogen/something else is mandatory. There are in game examples of needing fuel and there are in game examples of not needing fuel. There is a legacy method of powering jump via capacitors and there is no current prohibition on the old practice.
Since you cannot seem to decide which way you are arguing, tell you what. You rule zero your game the way you want it and I'll ignore the situation.
That's step three in the event of a radioactive spill. They always taught us the acronym SWIMS. But all anyone ever remembers is the joke version.

Smile
Walk Away
Ignore the situation
Maintain a low profile
Stab the next watch.

Just as well, as I'm not sure the actual version isn't still classified. Besides, this version has universal applications.

The jump drive requires power and fuel. Capacitors are the power. That power can come from lots of places.

You still need fuel. That fuel can be hydrogen. That fuel can be exotic particles.

Neither has anything to do with capacitors.

At first, I was like "why do people think more capacitors increases how much you can jump? Did the rules change somewhere?" But then I looked things up, low & behold, the rules haven't changed.

Capacitors can be powered any number of ways. You still need fuel. Having more capacitors does not affect how far you can jump.

This was the question: "Curious though, where did you find the rules on 'extra capacitors' giving you additional jump range?"
The answer given was pg 42 of HG'22.

That is where there are rules on extra capacitors. But there is no rule that having 'extra capacitors' gives additional jump range.

Because you still need fuel. Exotic particles in accumulators (or the canopy) or hydrogen.

In CT, the rule was if you have charge the capacitors from the Black Globe, you could jump IF YOU HAVE SUFFICIENT FUEL.

Collectors are already game changing, even in the more limited version T5 has. (Which has TL14 = Jump 1, TL 15 = Jump 2, etc and the canopy wears out and has to be replaced over time).

I don't GAF what people do in their home games. But I do prefer that rules questions be answered with the actual rules. What people do with that information later is up to them.