Fuel Bladders

[vargr1]

Unrefined fuel is water. Refined fuel is liquid hydrogen.

From CT Book , page 6:
"Refined fuel is available at starports at about Cr500 per ton; unrefined fuel is
available at starports for Cr100 per ton, or can be skimmed from gas giants for
free. In addition, water can be taken from oceans or lakes (if there are any on the
world) and used as unrefined fuel."

Unrefined fuel can be used as starship fuel without being refined. To me, that makes refined fuel purified water (probably deuterium heavy water). It's obvious that if we push unrefined fuel through the system that it'll work. Maybe not as well, but it will work without being refined or purified.

Which, of course, beings me back to my point which you constantly miss: Making all starship fuel as water instead of liquid hydrogen removes all the fancy magictech that has to be thought up for fuel skimmers and purifiers to work, making the whole thing much more believable.

 

[phavoc]

From CT Book , page 6:
"Refined fuel is available at starports at about Cr500 per ton; unrefined fuel is
available at starports for Cr100 per ton, or can be skimmed from gas giants for
free. In addition, water can be taken from oceans or lakes (if there are any on the
world) and used as unrefined fuel."

Unrefined fuel can be used as starship fuel without being refined. To me, that makes refined fuel purified water (probably deuterium heavy water). It's obvious that if we push unrefined fuel through the system that it'll work. Maybe not as well, but it will work without being refined or purified.

Which, of course, beings me back to my point which you constantly miss: Making all starship fuel as water instead of liquid hydrogen removes all the fancy magictech that has to be thought up for fuel skimmers and purifiers to work, making the whole thing much more believable.

(shrug) I can't help that you don't "like" the fact that unrefined fuel (i.e. water or scooped hydrogen is not equivalent to refined fuel (i.e. liquified hydrogen). It's been that way since the original LBB. Refined fuel is what nearly all ships use, either by purchasing a full tank of it or refining what they take on board. Unrefined fuel CAN be water, but it might also be gaseous hydrogen supercooled into a liquid format. Scooping gas from the atmosphere of the gas giant only gets you unrefined fuel, no different than melting cometary ice or pumping liquid water from a hydrosphere.

As far as reactor fuel being unrefined vs. refined, that's always been something that has never been clarified. One would think that a fusion reactor would need pure fuel rather than what a Mr. Fusion device might use, but maybe there is some sort of mechanism that does that for you prior to feeding it to the reactor. It's never been really explained and that's fine. More detail would be nice, but like I've said, hand-wavium magic works well here because too much science and detail would bog things down.

The rules have always talked about the hazard of using unrefined fuel to make the jump while at the same time there is nary a word mentioned about the hazard of feeding unrefined fuel to your reactor. That's been the whole point of having the 5x price increase for refined fuel - it makes jumping safer. So you can state that all fuel is just water, but the rule you quoted above doesn't support that supposition. If that was the case then why are there two classes of fuel?

I should clarify that the above about the unrefined fuel and reactors is part of MGT. In CT the rule was using unrefined fuel for jump OR reactor fuel gave you a -2 misjump chance - unless you were using jump drives equipped for using unrefined fuel (though no mention of reactor upgrades to use unrefined, so another possible oversight, but I don't have my CT books or files handy).

And from the Traveller SRD, on Metal Hydride storage of your hydrogen fuel:

Metal Hydride storage: Instead of storing the ship’s hydrogen in liquid form at extremely low temperature with a high risk of explosion if a leak occurs into the inhabited spaces of the ship, it is possible to store hydrogen in a more bulky form in a room temperature non–flammable metal hydride matrix. Any portion of the ship’s fuel tankage may be designated as metal hydride storage. This storage holds 50% less hydrogen fuel than a more normal tank. It is available at TL9 and costs MCr0.2 per ton.

 

[vargr1]

It's never been really explained and that's fine. More detail would be nice, but like I've said, hand-wavium magic works well here because too much science and detail would bog things down.

Unless, of course, you assume that all fuel is water. No need for handwavium magic after that. Please tell me how this small change (which actually reads well with the rules from Books 1,2,3) bogs things down?

L-hyd as fuel wasn't even mentioned until High Guard. Before that, the only details about fuel was that you could use water as unrefined fuel and you could skim unrefined fuel from ggs. If you can feed dirty water into your drive, you can feed clean water into it.

I'd prefer to have a game with the least amount of handwavium as possible.

 

[Reynard]

Whole thing is Traveller has used hydrogen for...ever. Pure liquid hydrogen has always been the ideal medium for starships to prevent misjumps from 'impurities'. Water as well as gas giant atmospheres ("The atmospheric composition of the giant planets is mostly hydrogen, ranging from 63% to 93% hydrogen by mass. Most of the rest is helium, with only tiny traces of other compounds.") are considered too impure and affect jump drives. Fusion reactors can use impure hydrogen since there is no canon effect listed and in many ways might be the version most common fuel cells, vehicles and spacecraft use. I don't know why some are so obsessed with water as fuel. We don't use water as the main ingredient of fuel cells today. Our best rockets don't burn pure water and concept cars burn hydrogen fuel not water. That's reality, not handwavium magic. One thing I have heard over the years in Traveller is hydrogen, by the nature of gas giants is an extremely abundant fuel even compared to water. I'm sure many worlds really don't like lots of ships constantly taking away their water especially on water poor worlds or demanding water be hauled offworld for ships incapable of landing. So much cheaper to use huge tankers to scoop their neighboring GG's atmosphere and haul it back in bulk either raw or processed along the way.

Let's get back to fuel bladders and their ability to be temporary hydrogen fuel tanks.

 

[vargr1]

Whole thing is Traveller has used hydrogen for...ever. Pure liquid hydrogen has always been the ideal medium for starships to prevent misjumps from 'impurities'.

Untrue. In CT Book 2, it states "refined fuel", but doesn't say its liquid hydrogen. That doesn't come until Book 5.

I don't know why some are so obsessed with water as fuel.

Because it lessens the handwavium of how the fuel purifiers and flexible liquid hydrogen bladders work.

We don't use water as the main ingredient of fuel cells today. Our best rockets don't burn pure water and concept cars burn hydrogen fuel not water. That's reality, not handwavium magic.

So? None of those are fusion reactors or jump drive or maneuver drives. No one is talking about using water in fuel cells or rockets - unless you think chemical rockets are what's powering Traveller spaceships.

 

[phavoc]

First off, what Reynard said. Secondly, I want to be clear I'm not trying to pick on you or your point. But I don't believe there isn't handwavium involved in making this work.

Untrue. In CT Book 2, it states "refined fuel", but doesn't say its liquid hydrogen. That doesn't come until Book 5.

So you acknowledge that both refined and unrefined fuel exist in Books 1-3? If that is the case, and we agree that unrefined fuel can be water (though you haven't said how you would balance that against unrefined fuel scooped from a gas giant), then what exactly would you consider refined "water" to be??? Evian?

Because it lessens the handwavium of how the fuel purifiers and flexible liquid hydrogen bladders work.

Traveller has been riddled with handwavium requirements. Besides, it's not tap water that is used for nuclear stuff today, it's deuterium. And basic fusion has been about hydrogen (a component of water), but nonetheless hydrogen. Logically refined fuel from unrefined easily translates into hydrogen from water.

So? None of those are fusion reactors or jump drive or maneuver drives. No one is talking about using water in fuel cells or rockets - unless you think chemical rockets are what's powering Traveller spaceships.

That's a valid point. In Back to the Future the Mr. Fusion ran on stale beer and a banana peel. In Piper's Space Vikings books you had nuclear power converters as well as matter to energy converters. There are many ways of making fusion work in sci-fi. Though to your point about chemical rockets powering Traveller starships... that's present now with the magical chemicals they have to push multi-million ton starships at high G, if only for a few hours.

 

[vargr1]

So you acknowledge that both refined and unrefined fuel exist in Books 1-3? If that is the case, and we agree that unrefined fuel can be water (though you haven't said how you would balance that against unrefined fuel scooped from a gas giant), then what exactly would you consider refined "water" to be??? Evian?

Cute, but there is a difference between water with impurities (swamp water, water scooped from gg atmospheres) and chemically pure water (water without a lot of other chemicals mixed into it). Evian would qualify as unrefined water.

Traveller rules allows one to use unrefined fuel (ie water pumped from a swamp) directly as starship fuel without purifying it in any way. You get a small increase in the possibility of a misjump, but that's it.

Let me repeat that - Traveller's rules allows unrefined fuel (ie wilderness-gathered water) to be used as fuel without purification - without it being 'refined' into liquid hydrogen.

And, yes, you can scoop water from gg atmospheres.

Traveller has been riddled with handwavium requirements. Besides, it's not tap water that is used for nuclear stuff today, it's deuterium. And basic fusion has been about hydrogen (a component of water), but nonetheless hydrogen. Logically refined fuel from unrefined easily translates into hydrogen from water.

That's one way to interpret it, and that's valid. But then, you have to postulate that the pump and tanks in your starship can handle water and slush hydrogen and/or compressed hydrogen gas. That gets really, really complicated. You also have to postulate a way that those fuel purifiers do it without having a bunch of spare, empty tankage in your starship.

Deuterium fusion is only one kind of fusion possible. It's the easiest to do, so that's what we're doing at out low tech level. As fusion reactors are 10,000 years old by the time of Traveller, I'd think that they'd figured the best ways for it to work, not the easiest. This removes one point of handwavium. The fewer points of handwavium, the better IMHO.

So? None of those are fusion reactors or jump drive or maneuver drives. No one is talking about using water in fuel cells or rockets - unless you think chemical rockets are what's powering Traveller spaceships.

That's a valid point. In Back to the Future the Mr. Fusion ran on stale beer and a banana peel. In Piper's Space Vikings books you had nuclear power converters as well as matter to energy converters. There are many ways of making fusion work in sci-fi.

There are many ways of making fusion work in the real world, too. Pushing water into them, where it's cracked into the hydrogen which is used, is also one way.

Though to your point about chemical rockets powering Traveller starships... that's present now with the magical chemicals they have to push multi-million ton starships at high G, if only for a few hours.

That's a whole 'nuther point of handwavium, and is important enough to be discussed in another thread. Suffice to say - the fact that modern chemical rockets do not use water is in no way related to the point that Traveller starships (especially if you subscribe to the reactionless thruster plate model) can or cannot use pure water as fuel.

Don't like this alternative Traveller tech of using water-as-starship-fuel? No prob - ignore it and move on.

 

[Reynard]

"Untrue. In CT Book 2, it states "refined fuel", but doesn't say its liquid hydrogen. That doesn't come until Book 5."
"And, yes, you can scoop water from gg atmospheres."

The book does say ship fuel is skimmed from gas giants. I don't remember at any time except possibly a Buck Rogers series episode that gas giants are bodies of water. Gas giants have been big balls of mostly hydrogen a long time. My other post above has that quotation showing the known properties of a gas giant; almost all hydrogen and helium making the vast majority the impurity. Every other impurity from a gas giant is nearly imperceptible especially water. I'm sure Marc and the gang understood that way back when they created Traveller so GG skimming would be fairly obvious that it involves hydrogen. Oddly, you say there isn't a stated fact to that in the old CT books to which you repeatedly claim that means they meant water! Come on!

As to using water as fuel, both for the reactor and the jump engine, yes you can but water gets NO advantage over hydrogen in the game and poses a disadvantage to the use of the jump drive (A -2 DM is a serious disadvantage considering the consequences). It doesn't make storage tanks any better and it doesn't reduce displacement in storage. Hydrogen in Traveller has always had advantage over other fuels for storage volume and price. Water is never listed as fuel for anything but starships and spacecraft. And again, hydrogen is infinitely more plentiful in the universe for use by space faring races whose engines and drive thrive on it.

By the way, "Fusion reactions occur when two (or more) atomic nuclei come close enough for long enough that the strong nuclear force pulling them together exceeds the electrostatic force pushing them apart, fusing them into heavier nuclei. For nuclei lighter than iron-56, the reaction is exothermic, releasing energy. For nuclei heavier than iron-56, the reaction is endothermic, requiring an external source of energy Hence, nuclei smaller than iron-56 are more likely to fuse while those heavier than iron-56 are more likely to break apart."

THAT'S why hydrogen, especially pure hydrogen is the preferred fuel for fusion reactors in any universe.

 

[phavoc]

Once again, what Reynard said.

Cute, but there is a difference between water with impurities (swamp water, water scooped from gg atmospheres) and chemically pure water (water without a lot of other chemicals mixed into it). Evian would qualify as unrefined water.

You still haven't answered the question. If refined fuel isn't Evian, then what do YOU consider it to be? Unrefined fuel has been pretty well beaten to death, so I think we can drop that as a point.

Traveller rules allows one to use unrefined fuel (ie water pumped from a swamp) directly as starship fuel without purifying it in any way. You get a small increase in the possibility of a misjump, but that's it.

Let me repeat that - Traveller's rules allows unrefined fuel (ie wilderness-gathered water) to be used as fuel without purification - without it being 'refined' into liquid hydrogen.

Well, in CT it says unrefined fuel in a reactor leads to a -2 DM for the operation of the reactor, in addition to the -2 jump for misjumps (not cumulative though). So one assumes there is a filtration system built into it to eliminate impurities and solid particles so they don't gum up the injectors.

And, yes, you can scoop water from gg atmospheres.

Gas giants are big, no question. But finding pockets of water vapor will be rare. Frontier refueling assumes you dive down, scoop and fill, and leave. That means you take what you can get, which means you'll get hydrogen with a mixture of other things (helium, oxygen, etc) nearly all the time. It's not that big of a challenge to keep just hydrogen and vent the rest. But finding pure water vapor is going to be hard.

That's one way to interpret it, and that's valid. But then, you have to postulate that the pump and tanks in your starship can handle water and slush hydrogen and/or compressed hydrogen gas. That gets really, really complicated. You also have to postulate a way that those fuel purifiers do it without having a bunch of spare, empty tankage in your starship.

My point in bringing this up is to avoid the hand-wavium. It's physically impossible to have liquid water and liquid hydrogen to occupy the same tank. To even have LHyd water freezes solid, ergo they cannot co-exist.

There are many ways of making fusion work in the real world, too. Pushing water into them, where it's cracked into the hydrogen which is used, is also one way.

As far as I know, the Tokamaks used hydrogen, but are looking at using helium since it would be more efficient to do so, something to do with the design of tokamaks. It's above me, but the amount of matter being fused is relatively small to generate the plasma. But we are rapidly going beyond my basic understanding of fusion physics, so I'll stop there.

That's a whole 'nuther point of handwavium, and is important enough to be discussed in another thread.

Agreed.

 

[vargr1]

"Untrue. In CT Book 2, it states "refined fuel", but doesn't say its liquid hydrogen. That doesn't come until Book 5."
"And, yes, you can scoop water from gg atmospheres."

The book does say ship fuel is skimmed from gas giants. I don't remember at any time except possibly a Buck Rogers series episode that gas giants are bodies of water.

You should read what I actually wrote. I never wrote that ggs "are bodies of water", but I will point you to this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudarsky%27s_gas_giant_classification

GGs do have water vapor in their atmosphere, eben class I ggs like Jupiter and Saturn. I wont even mention all those icy moons orbiting the gg.

Oddly, you say there isn't a stated fact to that in the old CT books to which you repeatedly claim that means they meant water! Come on!

It isn't actually a stated in CT. It says you can skim "unrefined fuel" from ggs, and then explicitly states that water can be used as "unrefined fuel", and then explicityly states that you can use unrefined fuel directly to power your reactor/jump drive without purifying it first.

As to using water as fuel, both for the reactor and the jump engine, yes you can but water gets NO advantage over hydrogen in the game

The advantage of using water are these:
*you aren't having to pump around slush hydrogen, which is a very volatile substance
*you don't have to handwave how fuel purifiers work without extensive pumping and extra tankage to crack H2 from water.
*fuel bladders become so much more believable and so much less dangerous.

hydrogen is infinitely more plentiful in the universe for use by space faring races whose engines and drive thrive on it.

Water is trivial to find and gather by a society that has 3I-level technology. Have you seen the number of icy moons a gg has? Or noticed what makes up a comet? If you have to go across a system to get hydrogen, you can get water just as easily.

THAT'S why hydrogen, especially pure hydrogen is the preferred fuel for fusion reactors in any universe.

You have read that I have stated that the water is cracked into H2 before injecting it into the fusion reactor? Where do you think our current reactors get their H2?

 

[vargr1]

Once again, what Reynard said.

Cute, but there is a difference between water with impurities (swamp water, water scooped from gg atmospheres) and chemically pure water (water without a lot of other chemicals mixed into it). Evian would qualify as unrefined water.

You still haven't answered the question. If refined fuel isn't Evian, then what do YOU consider it to be? Unrefined fuel has been pretty well beaten to death, so I think we can drop that as a point.

Take a look at what I bolded up there, but I'll explicitly state it here:

Unrefined fuel: water from whatever source with stuff and junk and whatever in it.
Refined fuel: chemically pure water on. Nothing else. Nada. Zip. Nothing. Just H20.

Traveller rules allows one to use unrefined fuel (ie water pumped from a swamp) directly as starship fuel without purifying it in any way. You get a small increase in the possibility of a misjump, but that's it.

Let me repeat that - Traveller's rules allows unrefined fuel (ie wilderness-gathered water) to be used as fuel without purification - without it being 'refined' into liquid hydrogen.

Well, in CT it says unrefined fuel in a reactor leads to a -2 DM for the operation of the reactor, in addition to the -2 jump for misjumps (not cumulative though). So one assumes there is a filtration system built into it to eliminate impurities and solid particles so they don't gum up the injectors.

My bolded point still stands. Water is cracked for its H2 for use in the fusion reactor. So, Traveller already allows plain water to be used as fuel.

And, yes, you can scoop water from gg atmospheres.

Gas giants are big, no question. But finding pockets of water vapor will be rare. Frontier refueling assumes you dive down, scoop and fill, and leave. That means you take what you can get, which means you'll get hydrogen with a mixture of other things (helium, oxygen, etc) nearly all the time. It's not that big of a challenge to keep just hydrogen and vent the rest. But finding pure water vapor is going to be hard.

You don't get even close to pure hydrogen from a gg atmosphere. They're a chemical soup that includes water vapor. You don't go for pockets of water vapor, you just scoop and eject what you don't want. Also, wilderness refueling can also mean gathering ice from those icy moons ggs have. Something tells me that doing that is much safer than diving into a gg.

That's one way to interpret it, and that's valid. But then, you have to postulate that the pump and tanks in your starship can handle water and slush hydrogen and/or compressed hydrogen gas. That gets really, really complicated. You also have to postulate a way that those fuel purifiers do it without having a bunch of spare, empty tankage in your starship.

My point in bringing this up is to avoid the hand-wavium. It's physically impossible to have liquid water and liquid hydrogen to occupy the same tank. To even have LHyd water freezes solid, ergo they cannot co-exist.

Agreed. So, if your fuel is water, and you dont crack the H2 until you need to use it, you dont have that problem. Bingo - no handwavium needed.

So, using the idea of refined fuel = liquid hydrogen, how does that tiny little fuel purifier do it without extra tankage?

There are many ways of making fusion work in the real world, too. Pushing water into them, where it's cracked into the hydrogen which is used, is also one way.

As far as I know, the Tokamaks used hydrogen,

For some few experiments, yes. For power production,hydrogen is the fuel of choice, and what every reactor is designed to use.

 

[Condottiere]

Who would have thought Traveller tanks would be fuel for controversy; I hadn't.

1. So you have fuel in four basic forms; water, hydrogen, refined hydrogen, and metal hydrogen.

2. I doubt that impurities in the water matters, since you probably can filter it before feeding it to the reactor, assuming you can drip feed it water.

3. Fuel is probably a pretty undeveloped part of starship operations, except when it comes to assigning bunkerage and adding on drop tanks.

4. You're going to increase the likelihood of a misjump if you use unrefined fuel: the power plant might hiccup during those six crucial minutes, or worse, the jump drive.

5. I like to think that metal hydride is in powder form, like talcum; I'm not a chemist, but I think that the alchemical formula is missing at least one unmentioned ingredient, and as a powder you can feed to either the jump drive or the reactor.

6. If fuel tanks need refrigeration equipment, it hasn't been mentioned so far.

 

[phavoc]

Take a look at what I bolded up there, but I'll explicitly state it here:

Unrefined fuel: water from whatever source with stuff and junk and whatever in it.
Refined fuel: chemically pure water on. Nothing else. Nada. Zip. Nothing. Just H20.

Okay, I didn't catch that upthread. That's some pretty expensive water for what is a very simple process. It doesn't jive with MGT, or canon since HG came out and clarified what refined fuel meant. But at least I get your point now.

My bolded point still stands. Water is cracked for its H2 for use in the fusion reactor. So, Traveller already allows plain water to be used as fuel.

I'm not sure I'd go that far, but I see your point. I believe this was just another oversight where the detail wasn't sufficient. But, so long as a player is willing to accept the -2 DM for reactor and jump operations, then sure. CT did mention that some ships were equipped to operate on unrefined fuel, but later versions never went with that explanation.

You don't get even close to pure hydrogen from a gg atmosphere. They're a chemical soup that includes water vapor. You don't go for pockets of water vapor, you just scoop and eject what you don't want. Also, wilderness refueling can also mean gathering ice from those icy moons ggs have. Something tells me that doing that is much safer than diving into a gg.

Never said you got pure hydrogen. I said you got unrefined hydrogen in your tanks. And sure, there is going to be water vapor, but you are most likely going to get hydrogen mixed with other gases. And when you get your mixed gases you do dump anything you don't want and keep the pure hydrogen. Yes, you can gather ice, though you should need some special gear to liquify ice in space to keep it liquid while you pump it into your tanks. It would take a long while to bring ice chunks inside and put them in a pot on the stove to melt it.

Agreed. So, if your fuel is water, and you dont crack the H2 until you need to use it, you dont have that problem. Bingo - no handwavium needed.

Indeed, you don't. Except for the fact that the current rules DO clarify that refined fuel IS pure liquid hydrogen. So aside from that little fact, you are correct!

So, using the idea of refined fuel = liquid hydrogen, how does that tiny little fuel purifier do it without extra tankage?

A valid point. That has been an ongoing oversight, in not providing details on the fuel tankage and how purification works. Not the first time something like this has been pointed out.

 

[vargr1]

Agreed. So, if your fuel is water, and you dont crack the H2 until you need to use it, you dont have that problem. Bingo - no handwavium needed.

Indeed, you don't. Except for the fact that the current rules DO clarify that refined fuel IS pure liquid hydrogen. So aside from that little fact, you are correct!

You do understand that that was my point? I never stated that Traveller said 'refined fuel = water", i said that if we make "refined fuel = water" then the handwavium goes away.

You know - a suggestion that makes the game more plausible.

 

[vargr1]

My bolded point still stands. Water is cracked for its H2 for use in the fusion reactor. So, Traveller already allows plain water to be used as fuel.

I'm not sure I'd go that far, but I see your point. I believe this was just another oversight where the detail wasn't sufficient. But, so long as a player is willing to accept the -2 DM for reactor and jump operations, then sure. CT did mention that some ships were equipped to operate on unrefined fuel, but later versions never went with that explanation.

Yep. Traveller allows "military and quasi-military) ships to run directly on "unrefined fuel", which it also says can be water, without any negative consequences.

So, fuel = water is already part of Traveller Canon.

Here's the quotes from CT. Similar language is in Starter Traveller.
MegaTraveller has similar wording (Imp Enc pg 88).
TNE states explicitly that unrefined fuel needs to be refined.
T4 has the same wording as CT (pg 116).
T5 shows no penalty for using unrefined fuel. Of course, it is also unfinished.
MgT/MgT2 imposes a -2 if using unrefined fuel.


CT Book 2, page 6

Refined fuel is available at starports at about Cr500 per ton; unrefined fuel is
available at starports for Cr100 per ton, or can be skimmed from gas giants for
free. In addition, water can be taken from oceans or lakes (if there are any on the
world) and used as unrefined fuel. Military and quasi-military starships often use
unrefined fuel because it is more available, and because their drives are specially
built to use it. Commercial ships sometimes use unrefined fuel because it is cheaper

Misjump: Each time the ship engages in a jump, throw 13+ for a misjump: Apply
the following DMs: +Iif using unrefined fuel (and not equipped to do so), +5 if
within 100 planetary diameters of a world, +I5 if within 10 planetary diameters of
a world. If the result is 16+, then the ship is destroyed.


pg 11
Misjump: Throw 13+ each time a
ship jumps, with the following DMs.
Within 100 diameters of world +5
Within 10 diameters of world +I0
Using unrefined fuel + 1
If naval ship - 1
If scout ship -2

So, the statement that "starships can use water as fuel without penalty" is true - in some versions of Traveller.

 

[Reynard]

"Military and quasi-military starships often use unrefined fuel because it is more available, and because their drives are specially built to use it."

Keep reading the material. Originally there was no fuel purifiers stated in Classic Traveller and all ships had to take a chance with unrefined fuel or pay extra for refined. It was hinted that scout service and military units had, probably very expensive, fuel processors. High Guard bowed to players and refs and made fuel processors available to them and it been that way ever since.

"So, fuel = water is already part of Traveller Canon."

Always has been BUT it is not refined fuel, hydrogen was, is and always will be. You don't clean the fuel, you get the negative jump DM.

You keep quoting a forty year old first edition prototype book that have been refined and redefined over and over as if it was today's Traveller canon. Mongoose (and T5) are the current canon and saying the magic word handwavium does not invalidate the current canon for your personal alternatives.

 

[vargr1]

"Military and quasi-military starships often use unrefined fuel because it is more available, and because their drives are specially built to use it."

Keep reading the material. Originally there was no fuel purifiers stated in Classic Traveller and all ships had to take a chance with unrefined fuel or pay extra for refined. It was hinted that scout service and military units had, probably very expensive, fuel processors. High Guard bowed to players and refs and made fuel processors available to them and it been that way ever since.

"So, fuel = water is already part of Traveller Canon."

Always has been BUT it is not refined fuel, hydrogen was, is and always will be. You don't clean the fuel, you get the negative jump DM.

You keep quoting a forty year old first edition prototype book that have been refined and redefined over and over as if it was today's Traveller canon. Mongoose (and T5) are the current canon and saying the magic word handwavium does not invalidate the current canon for your personal alternatives.

Actually, that bolded part wasn't true until High Guard. CT Books 1,2,3 were published before HG. Also, I was unaware that CT was a 'prototype book', nor that MT and T4 were forty years old.

You do understand - as I have stated many times before - that 'starship fuel is water' is a suggestion that would eliminate the handwavium and problems with fuel purifiers. It's not how the rules are written now. I know that. I've pointed that out.

But the critique that 'starship fuel is l-hyd and has always been' is blatantly false, and the excerpts from CT, MT, and T4 show.

If you don't like the suggestion, ignore it and move on. Repeating 'that isn't how Traveller fuel works' isn't adding anything to the conversation.

 

[phavoc]

You are quite correct that plain water would make things easier from not having to worry about other gaps.

But doing so invalidates other issues. In MGT, fuel is required to be converted to exotic particles to create a jump bubble (in other versions it simply was used to quickly be fused to create power and enable jump grids).

The Metal hydride storage system would go away (I guess you could replace it with ice blocks).

As most games go, and Traveller is no exception, clarifications, corrections and new things are introduced with later versions. And, like other games do, later versions of Traveller do change technologies and sometimes fundamental concepts in order to justify selling new copies of the rules.

But failing that, it's easier to acknowledge the handwavium requirement since it's been around for a long time and things have changed in MGT.

 

[dragoner]

Methane is better than water (even though volumetric density does not equal energy density), the enthalpy is why we source 95% of hydrogen production from fossil fuels still. Even with things more efficient, it is still better to have the constituent parts. "Un-refined" could also mean that the protium ratio is too high.

What would become of the dton? The 14 cubic meters is from liquid hydrogen.

Knowing space flight, with NASA moving to the next gen and hydrogen rockets, and looking at the LBB's concurrently; GDW was probably flirting with thrusters and engines being chemical rockets ...


... then they saw the fuel as payload issue and orbital mechanics math.

 

[vargr1]

You are quite correct that plain water would make things easier from not having to worry about other gaps.

But doing so invalidates other issues. In MGT, fuel is required to be converted to exotic particles to create a jump bubble (in other versions it simply was used to quickly be fused to create power and enable jump grids).

Not quite, or, more accurately, not just 'exotic particles.'

Traveller Core Rulebook (MgT2) page 148
"To jump, a ship creates a bubble of hyperspace by means of injecting high energy exotic particles into an artificial singularity. The singularity is driven out of our universe, creating a tiny parallel universe which is then blown up like a balloon by injecting hydrogen into it."

Assuming that refined fuel = l-hyd, those exotic particles must be made from the l-hyd. The rest of the l-hyd is injected to form the jump bubble. Cracking H2 from water take very little time, probably less time than to pump slush hydrogen and heat it to a gas.

As most games go, and Traveller is no exception, clarifications, corrections and new things are introduced with later versions. And, like other games do, later versions of Traveller do change technologies and sometimes fundamental concepts in order to justify selling new copies of the rules.

But failing that, it's easier to acknowledge the handwavium requirement since it's been around for a long time and things have changed in MGT.

Agreed, however I prefer a game with as little handwavium required. Changing a technology to require more handwavium is a step in the wrong direction, IMHO.