Fuel transfer rates

[Spartan159]

Anyone happen to know what the rate of transfer from a collapsible tank to the regular fuel tank is? I am pretty sure I saw it somewhere but not where. I seem to recall that demountable tanks were considered directly part of the tankage when set up, and that drop tanks transferred in seconds.

 

[dragoner]

Trillion Credit Squadron page 23 has both the collapsible and demountable tanks, it says that the collapsible tanks can't feed fuel directly into the jump drive:

Fuel cannot be pumped
directly from these tanks to the J-drive, and so a ship must finish
a jump before it can use the fuel stored in collapsible tanks.

Sort of nerfs their purpose, I would judge they could do it personally.

 

[Spartan159]

Just means your hanging in space for the duration it takes to pump the fuel to the main tank, check over the drives, plot a jump and charge the jump drive. Core puts Astrogation time at 10d6 minutes, and charging the drive at 1d6x10 seconds. Starship Operators Manual puts charging the drive at 3D6x2 minutes. I don't recall seeing a time frame for general safety checks anywhere. I just rolled 1D6 Hours for the safety check and figured fuel was transferred while that was ongoing.

 

[dragoner]

I would think so too, and do it that way, because otherwise it is an extra week. The one ship I use that has collapsible tanks is Mark Lucas' Boudicca Class Frontier Trader, which with the tanks as written would be j2+1, instead of j3, and I can't see the reason for the difference between the two.

 

[Condottiere]

Since the tanks are empty, I don't see a reason for them not to be refilled during the transition, so once the navigator has reorientated himself, the ship can commence another jump.

 

[Askold]

Trillion Credit Squadron page 23 has both the collapsible and demountable tanks, it says that the collapsible tanks can't feed fuel directly into the jump drive:

Fuel cannot be pumped
directly from these tanks to the J-drive, and so a ship must finish
a jump before it can use the fuel stored in collapsible tanks.

Sort of nerfs their purpose, I would judge they could do it personally.

Not really. It prevents people from building ships that have something like Jump-4 engines but only enough fuel capacity for Jump-2 and then using the demountable and collapsible tanks to make J-4 jumps.

With the way the extra tanks work according to rules you are still increasing the range of your ship but you just have to make the occasional stop and fill the internal tanks of your ship before the next jump.

The tanks will still allow you to do jumps that would otherwise be impossible for your ship, you just do them in two parts.

 

[dragoner]

Trillion Credit Squadron page 23 has both the collapsible and demountable tanks, it says that the collapsible tanks can't feed fuel directly into the jump drive:

Fuel cannot be pumped
directly from these tanks to the J-drive, and so a ship must finish
a jump before it can use the fuel stored in collapsible tanks.

Sort of nerfs their purpose, I would judge they could do it personally.

Not really. It prevents people from building ships that have something like Jump-4 engines but only enough fuel capacity for Jump-2 and then using the demountable and collapsible tanks to make J-4 jumps.

With the way the extra tanks work according to rules you are still increasing the range of your ship but you just have to make the occasional stop and fill the internal tanks of your ship before the next jump.

The tanks will still allow you to do jumps that would otherwise be impossible for your ship, you just do them in two parts.

Then why have them at all, if there is not any benefit over the regular set up?

 

[phavoc]

It is an artificial limitation on fuel/jump rules. Technically there's no limitation on creating internal tankage that could be directly plumbed into the fuel system and pump out at the same rate as regular tanks. What few limitations there are could be easily overcome with a bit more structural reinforcement, faster pumps, etc.

The rule was put into place simply to make it so that people didn't build ships that weren't got around the basic limitation in the rules the designers wanted. It's not much different than other rules in Traveller - they are arbitrary and (occassionally) some reasoning is put forth to justify them.

But it's a gaming system, and as such it's not necessarily supposed to reflect reality or good engineering principles. And it's easy enough to change for your playing campaigns.

 

[Spartan159]

In my particular situation I designed a TL 15 400 ton fat trader that while still jump one, had a permanent collapsible tank for spanning jump 2 gaps. And Lo, it had not crossed my mind that I had a whole week to transfer fuel while twiddling my thumbs in jump space. Derp.

 

[dragoner]

It is an artificial limitation on fuel/jump rules.

eg nerfed. That's what I said?

 

[Spartan159]

Then why have them at all, if there is not any benefit over the regular set up?

The benefit for Demountable and Collapsible tankage is temporarly reducing cargo space in exchange for range. The Collapsible tanks are quickly returned to cargo space but have to be pumped into the regular internal tanks, the Demountable tanks are supposed to be the same as regular internal tanks but need time to dismount back to cargo space. Trade-offs. And yeah, it's a game balance artifact IMO.

 

[dragoner]

....

 

[Condottiere]

I don't think it's ever been established how fast the fuel is consumed in the jump drive, though I'd speculate it's less than six minutes.

Suckage might create too much pressure for the rubber balloon.