ice refueling

[adzling]

My table is about to have a time-sensitive refueling stop on an ice rock.

There are rules for refueling from a gas giant, an ocean or simply taking on fuel at a starport however afaik there are no rules on ice refueling.

Presumably it would take longer than gas giant skimming because you have melt/ break up the ice and feed it into the scoops then go through normal refining process.

Anyone have any ideas/ insight/ references for how much longer that process will take when harvesting ice?

cheers!

 

[Condottiere]

Would depend on how you harvest it, because I rather doubt you can use the same scoop to suck in hydrogen as you would solidified water.

So you either gasify it, liquefy it or slice it.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

CT TCS refuelling suggests that refuelling from a planetary ice-cap does not take all that much longer than ocean refuelling, perhaps a day or so?

You can always use CT Beltstrike or MgT2 HG rules to find an ice asteroid.

 

[Arkathan]

Use an umbilical with a low powered laser tip. Seal the area around the drill site, power the laser and suck up the hydrogen rich gasses. (Ammonia, methane and steam)
Ramp up the laser power to avoid an explosive phase change. Should take no longer than skimming rarified gasses in the shallows of a gas giant. The Companion shows skimming takes about 140 minutes in the deep layer and 280 minutes in the shallows. This is broken up among 20 passes. It does not include resetting and diving again to restart the passes.
Watch out for the bore holes after, and don't make them too close together.
Edit to add: The core rulebook says it generally takes 1d6 hours to refuel using scoops in a gas giant or hoses in an ocean. Using the gas giant shallows would take that to 2d6 hours.

 

[NOLATrav]

Well, the hard part is done - they found the ice, and got there. That IMO would be the real time suck.

Some good mechanical ideas already posted. But if it’s time-sensitive… just make it take 1D-1 <time increments> longer than they have before the thing happens. Or whatever. The time spent actually refueling doesn’t matter, it’s how much time they have (if any) once they’re done. Or if they have enough time to finish.

Otherwise they won’t feel the pressure.

 

[Baldo]

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/116842/The-Astral-Splendour

The Astral Splendour has good advice/guidelines for this situation (page 39: the Travellers need ice for their ship *FAST*):

"Mining the ice of the asteroid is not an easy job. The ice is as hard as marble and the ship has no mining equipment. Passengers and crew will have to work together to break off chunks of the ice by hand and feed it into the fuel scoops. The ice will then be processed through the fuel processor to turn it into refined fuel. (...) Ice mining is very tedious, very difficult, back-breaking work. The work is divided into four-hour shifts. After a shift each worker will be exhausted and will need to rest a minimum of eight hours before being able to work again or become fatigued."

Get the adventure for full details and rules, it's very good .

 

[Condottiere]

The UNREP system should make the transfer easier.

 

[Bill Sheil]

It is a problem that requires a specific engineering solution but not a very complex one. Contrary to the above post ice does not become inherently harder just because the temperature may be low, it remain fairly easy to cut with power tools or the application of heat. In space the main issue is getting it into the processors in liquid form. In a vacuum you cannot suck it in without some grav technology. The easiest and most basic solution in zero-g I can think of is to have a large volume expandable bag and sheer the ice into it in solid chunks, then seal it up and apply heat drawing the liquid/gas into an umbilical. On a planetary (ice cap) scenario I think you could just easily melt part of a ice surface into a liquid pool and draw into the refinery directly through its hoses.

 

[cunningrat]

From the Drinaxian Companion: large ice deposits yield 1D tons per Fuel Transfer Unit per hour, sparse ice deposits (where you have to move hoses often) yield 1D3 tons per FTU per hour. (1 Fuel Transfer Unit is defined as a full 25 tons of fuel tankage, since fuel tankage also indicates fuel handling capabilities.)

 

[adzling]

From the Drinaxian Companion: large ice deposits yield 1D tons per Fuel Transfer Unit per hour, sparse ice deposits (where you have to move hoses often) yield 1D3 tons per FTU per hour. (1 Fuel Transfer Unit is defined as a full 25 tons of fuel tankage, since fuel tankage also indicates fuel handling capabilities.)

this is pretty perfect thank you i'll look it up!

 

[Ursus Maior]

From the Drinaxian Companion: large ice deposits yield 1D tons per Fuel Transfer Unit per hour, sparse ice deposits (where you have to move hoses often) yield 1D3 tons per FTU per hour. (1 Fuel Transfer Unit is defined as a full 25 tons of fuel tankage, since fuel tankage also indicates fuel handling capabilities.)

The Drinaxian Companion is a treasure trove for these things. It really has an amazing array of ideas for almost any Traveller campaign.