Jump Drive Fuel - Want Your Opinions

[Solomani666]

Given that:

1. It is the ships power plant that supplies the power to a ships jump engines.
2. The power plant rating needs to be at least the same rating as the jump drive or larger.
3. Jump fuel is used to inflate the jump bubble.
4. All jumps regardless of distance take approximately the same time.


One might conclude that:

1. A ship should be able to make a jump of any length using only the jump fuel needed for a jump 1.
2. The only fuel penalty for a longer jump should be the fuel needed to support the ships larger power plant.
3. A ships operational time should also include the time it is in jump space.
4. Since jump fuel is used to inflate the jump bubble, it does not have to be refined.
5. For a safe jump only the fuel needed for the ships power plant needs to be refined.


Please try to keep comments on topic.
Questions about the above, or how ships drives work are welcome.

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[zero]

1. I think the extra fuel is what makes the Jump bubble more stable to travel more parsecs. Although the Power Plant supplies the power to a Jump Drive, you need a Jump Drive of a certain ability because the type of Drive dictates the power of the created singularity, a bigger ship needs a more powerful singularity to keep the Jump stable.

2. The hydrogen pumped out of the ship is what creates a Jump bubble surrounding the ship, its part of the Jump Drive systems and so thats why a Jump costs so much fuel. Fuel of a Jump is dictated by size and the number of parsecs needed to be travelled. The hydrogen must envelope the entire ship and also keep the bubble up until the target parsec is reached.

3. The Power Plant dims to divert power to the Jump. It all depends on the GM if they want the Power plant to still be draining in Jump space. I'd say logically if people are using Life Support systems, it should.

4. The Jump bubble doesnt need to be refined, but having it refined allows less inconsistencies in the bubble which means less chance of a misjump - which are bad. Unrefined hydrogen makes the bubble screw up basically.

Hope this helps. I only know some basics, others will post with more technical details, but these are my opinion on this matter.

 

[phavoc]

Under MGT jump rules, the jump drive is necessary to generate the jump bubble, and the hydrogen fuel is turned into 'exotic' particles and pumped into the bubble. It slowly degrades, and at the end of the degradation, you get dumped out of your pseudo-universe back into the one you started in. I'm not sure if the ships reactor turns the fuel into the exotic particles, or if that is a function of the jump drive itself.

Under all previous incarnations of Traveller (maybe not D20.. never played that one) the fuel was burned by the fusion plant to charge the jump drive right before jump, which then took that power and dumped it into your Lanthanum grid built into your ship's hull which then put you into hyperspace. And I think Zuchai crystals were required for the jump drive (or maybe the M drive... don't remember).

But to answer your conclusions:
1) No. More fuel is pumped into the jump bubble, which degrades at a relative constant (though not 100% universal, hence the randomness of jump re-entry timing). A bigger bubble allows it to degrade at the same time, but perhaps allows you to travel farther in your pseudo-universe. It's not at all explained, except for the additional fuel requirement to travel farther. One could assume that the bigger bubble makes you travel farther in the same time period. Or something else.

2) See description in #1. To alter this you would need to fundamentally alter jump travel in your universe. Which is certainly allowed.

3) Do you mean the time between refuelings?

4) Yeah, that's not quite clear on the difference between refined and unrefined. It used to be that unrefined jump fuel didn't 'burn' as well. But with the hydrogen being used to generate exotic particles, I guess you could assume that having say ammonia and helium particles in your jump bubble cause it to act weirdly. But it is certainly something that begs a better explanation.

5) Not unreasonable assumption. You could also simply further randomize your jump bubble. So say you are using unrefined fuel, and your bubble may collapse earlier or later, thus putting you farther away from your intended jumpspace entry point upon arrival. Which would suck if you were like 5 days away instead of just 1.