Justifying Starport Class

[sideranautae]

There could be mineral content in the water that would damage engines and which regular fuel purifiers cannot handle.

Regardless of ANY mineral content in H2O, getting pure H out is child's play now.

 

[Reynard]

"I also allow Class C starports to have Refined Fuel."

The purpose of the starport class rating is to define the capabilities of starports. Saying a C class has refined fuel make it more a B class. Very confusing to travellers. A C class is a very low grade port good to get your ship off to the next destination. It also shows it's not a destination for any but the most desperate or persistent company and not for high traffic or big carriers.

Traveller keeps the rules simple. I'd hate to see some massive table describing every combination of facility for starports.

 

[Condottiere]

Should have some interesting religious rituals, commandments, taboos and fetishes.

Always close the door behind you.

 

[dragoner]

Traveller keeps the rules simple. I'd hate to see some massive table describing every combination of facility for starports.

Yes, I agree. At the same time, I use fueling stations, stationed around a gas giant, or on a choke point to a cluster in an empty hex. I haven't really thought too much about it, but I could make one up from supplement 14; selling fuel seems fairly lucrative.

 

[Meanderer]

Regardless of ANY mineral content in H2O, getting pure H out is child's play now.

Yes, but we still have two grades of fuel (refined and unrefined) so there may be something else going on with the fuel processing. Maybe there are some particular isotopes that need to be filtered for and the minerals aren't so much getting in with those isotopes as bonding with them so you don't get everything you need. Your mix is wrong. You end up with a poor grade unrefined fuel.

Or the water, in its natural state, is highly corrosive. Fuel scoops and purifiers are designed for pumping in the atmosphere of a gas giant or water for processing. Not sure the design specks include pumping in hydrochloric or sulphuric acid (or something even nastier).

It doesn't have to be something that absolutely won't work in the fuel systems, just something that will cause excessive wear and minor damage that will eventually have to be fixed (maybe sooner than later, or it will cut down on the performance of the equipment). Of course the starport will be broadcasting the warnings so ships can avoid this damage - maybe overplaying how bad it is to make their refined fuel appear all the more attractive.

 

[sideranautae]

Yes, but we still have two grades of fuel (refined and unrefined) so there may be something else going on with the fuel processing.

Refined is pure Hydrogen (usually as L-hyd). Unrefined is anything else. H2O, Ammonia, mixed gases from gas giants, etc. It is basic chemistry. There are no mysteries to unravel.

 

[Matt Wilson]

Yes, but we still have two grades of fuel (refined and unrefined) so there may be something else going on with the fuel processing.

If unrefined fuel is something like, say, methane, then you have a lot less useful hydrogen by volume in your tank. Your jump bubble of liquid hydrogen is actually a good portion of carbon. And as we all know, when carbon interacts with the zigmafraz whatsit layer of jumpspace, it can occasionally cause a subflux wobble.

There's a lot of room for interesting houseruling here, I think. You could say that any ship with a tank full of methane or water still has to break out the hydrogen to a pure form, so you only end up with a fraction of the available energy, like using a lower grade fuel in your car. Maybe using refined fuel gets you twice as many jumps? Or you could make a fuel efficiency chart based on hydrogen by volume in different forms.

Or if you do it the other way around, the ship has to break down the hydrogen before it's useful, which means you can't fill up with water and then head out, because by the time you're ready to jump what's left in your tank won't be enough. You have to hang out at the water pump for however many hours/days, fending off angry predators and bill collectors.

If ships take on refined/purified hydrogen in liquid form, then that's going to probably require a decent TL to provide.

 

[sideranautae]

Or if you do it the other way around, the ship has to break down the hydrogen before it's useful, which means you can't fill up with water and then head out, because by the time you're ready to jump what's left in your tank won't be enough.

1 liter of water contains ~1.6 times as many hydrogen atoms as 1 liter of L-hyd does...

 

[Reynard]

That's the fuel processor time requirement. You aren't gathering fuel then processing it as you fly away. You are spending hours or days gathering the fuel, 'cleaning' it then filling the tanks. If you're interrupted during processing, calculate the amount of time scooping and cleaning you actually achieved to determine how much fuel is in the tank.

 

[Jame Rowe]

That's the fuel processor time requirement. You aren't gathering fuel then processing it as you fly away. You are spending hours or days gathering the fuel, 'cleaning' it then filling the tanks. If you're interrupted during processing, calculate the amount of time scooping and cleaning you actually achieved to determine how much fuel is in the tank.

Which could explain why a C port has, along side its unrefined fuel, some refined fuel - on a roll of 6+. It's usually there, but every once in a while your players get "oi, didn't you get the message? Our refined fuel ran out yesterday when the Navy/Megacorp/Scouts came through. Unless you want to just get our unrefined you'll have to wait another (1d3 days) until we're through refining it."

Though as a side note, I might take a nickname from a certain kid's cartoon and have some of my non-scouts characters call anyone in that service a "Scoots," or a "Scoot-Scoot."

 

[Meanderer]

Though as a side note, I might take a nickname from a certain kid's cartoon and have some of my non-scouts characters call anyone in that service a "Scoots," or a "Scoot-Scoot."

At my high school there was a kid with the nickname "Scooter". It was not complimentary.

 

[Meanderer]

And as we all know, when carbon interacts with the zigmafraz whatsit layer of jumpspace, it can occasionally cause a subflux wobble.

It's okay. We have Wussley Crusher on board and he will point the phase modulator at the zuchai crystals to reverse the polarity of the jump containment field so the resulting <insert technobabble name used only once ever> beam will make the problem go away.

:wink:

 

[AndrewW]

At my high school there was a kid with the nickname "Scooter". It was not complimentary.

Interesting, same here (well, other then wasn't exactly a high school, but did cover those grade levels as well). Though wasn't derogatory.

 

[Reynard]

"Which could explain why a C port has, along side its unrefined fuel, some refined fuel - on a roll of 6+. "

Thank goodness I have The Third Imperium: Starports once again reminding me you need EVERY source book. Once upon a time the definition says one thing then a new book blurs it all.

I guess expanding the rule makes things less black and white so now starports have some abilities of their higher tier ports. The refined fuel availability per 24 hours is saying it's either gathered and processed elsewhere or the processing equipment is subpar for demand which explains again why it's a C class port. I suddenly envision a tanker ship fresh from the local gas giant with EP Gas (extra planetary) logo on the sides hooking its hoses to the underground tank while impatient pilots wait in the diner. Ships with processors will tank up on unrefined and let it run for a day or two before takeoff.

 

[Meanderer]

The potentials for nicknames are endless. Funny. Twisted and sick. Or just plain strange.

Like an abrasive ship's engineer, zero people skills, stressed out and seeming like he could snap at any moment, nicknamed Ripper. The new astrogator hears the captain say something to the ship's steward about being very careful and not wanting to set the Ripper off. She is cautioned to stay out of engineering. Her imagination starts to run to images of the engineer going on a killing spree.

But what is really going on is that this engineer has O.C.D. and is perpetually worried about something going wrong on his ship. He's too temperamental to hold down a job on some big shipping line or survive in the navy but has settled into this job on a tramp trader because the captain/pilot gives him free reign over the engineering section and because he's just so damned good at his job. But in addition to needing a lot of space to work and not wanting people looking over his shoulder, his condition seems to lead to digestive issues and most foods give him horrible gas. Even with the air filters working at 100%, really, you don't want to go down to engineering.

:wink:

Sorry to get off-topic but the talk about nicknames brought this back.
Hey, some NPCs are never forgotten.

 

[Jame Rowe]

Though as a side note, I might take a nickname from a certain kid's cartoon and have some of my non-scouts characters call anyone in that service a "Scoots," or a "Scoot-Scoot."

At my high school there was a kid with the nickname "Scooter". It was not complimentary.

Which is what the point of the nickname... :twisted:

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

"Which could explain why a C port has, along side its unrefined fuel, some refined fuel - on a roll of 6+. "

Thank goodness I have The Third Imperium: Starports once again reminding me you need EVERY source book. Once upon a time the definition says one thing then a new book blurs it all.

I guess expanding the rule makes things less black and white so now starports have some abilities of their higher tier ports. The refined fuel availability per 24 hours is saying it's either gathered and processed elsewhere or the processing equipment is subpar for demand which explains again why it's a C class port. I suddenly envision a tanker ship fresh from the local gas giant with EP Gas (extra planetary) logo on the sides hooking its hoses to the underground tank while impatient pilots wait in the diner. Ships with processors will tank up on unrefined and let it run for a day or two before takeoff.

These are the kind of rules that as a Referee I freely change without a second thought.

In CT, the original books (LBB) did not include a fuel purifier, so Refined Fuel was expensive and rare. Then, along came the original High Guard and suddenly every frakking ship had a fuel purifier and that made Refined fuel stupidly expensive and completely unnecessary since almost every ship had a purifier now (and if it didn't that was the first mod made to it, even before weapons).

SO, I decided that "unrefined" fuel was pure hydrogen, the stuff that came out of the fuel purifiers and freely available. "Refined" fuel now became something special, some additive or something that made it more efficient. nBSG even gave it a name - Tylium (waves hands vigorously if asked for details). This "refined" fuel allowed a ship to use 1/2 of its normal amount of jump fuel (5%) and THAT made it valuable. (BTW that was also an old house rule of mine since I didn't like how much fuel became such an important part of every ship's operation)

I made that change a long time ago and I have freely ignored all future versions of Traveller that have such a nonsensical rule as Refined/Unrefined fuel with so much cost difference and so little benefit. My house rule is better and I will continue to use it until someone comes up with something better.

Guess what? The game is still the same; I have actually been able to create adventures around getting access to Refined fuel.

Unless you are writing for Traveller, if you don't like it, change the rule to something you like. Trying to justify the rule, especially something like this, is just going to run you around in circles with no resolution.

I don't mean for this to sound high handed, but the fuel issue is one of the old Traveller issues that comes up again and again and never gets resolved.

 

[Reynard]

I like the rules the way they are because it makes the game a challenge rather than a munchkin run. Unlike so many sci fi RPGs, Traveller makes you work for everything, a bit like real life. Finding good fuel or praying the unrefined fuel you used because you don't have the cash or are just cheap won't send you into deep space is a challenge. A C starport adds the flavor that the universe isn't shiny and perfect and maybe here and there it's a little backwood. The D, E and even X original descriptors create worlds of adventure because, relatively, you're not in the 'big city'.

Personally, the challenge as a referee is to work with the rules for the players' enjoyment. Traveller is about long voyages, difficult communications, exotic places and earning that Credit to pay for everything without white sails. palm trees and cannons.

 

[sideranautae]

I don't mean for this to sound high handed, but the fuel issue is one of the old Traveller issues that comes up again and again and never gets resolved.

Correct. Arbitrarily illogical rules can't be "resolved" only changed.

 

[Meanderer]

You can be obsessed with the quantity of hydrogen that must be acquired, the mix of helium isotopes and their availability, and how thermodynamics relates to the massive quantity of hydrogen consumed by power plants compared to how little of it makes its way into useable power (what is the rest? lost heat? Where is that energy going when we make fusion power plants 5% efficient (or less)?

Or we can say that you are descending to the flogiston layer of the gas giant to refuel.

It's just a game. Players who remember that tend to have more fun.