Looking for Energy Armor

[PsiTraveller]

I have a note pasted into a spreadsheet that describes TL 16 Energy Armor: Highly advanced Super dense armor that can repair itself after being damaged.

There is a description of the damage absorbing, healing and Collector feeding capabilities of the armor.

Is this from a Mongoose product? Or did I copy and paste from another source? Does any of this ring a bell?

 

[AndrewW]

Is this from a Mongoose product? Or did I copy and paste from another source? Does any of this ring a bell?

Haven't seen it myself. T5 maybe?

 

[PsiTraveller]

Found the thread
http://forum.mongoosepublishing.com/viewtopic.php?f=89&t=119443&hilit=bio+ship

 

[Reynard]

Even VIRUS wasn't that unstoppable. What is the point of high tech alien ships in a Traveller campaign setting that need fleets of TL 15 fleets to dent them. Hate to think what corresponding weapons it would carry that would pick off those fleets in the meantime. Probably gets a big WOW! factor in anime sci fantasy.

 

[Anonymous]

Star Trek Borg were unstoppable at first.

I consider Traveller sci-fantasy, mainly because psionics and ancients artifacts. If you ignored those, I could go with a sci-fi classification. I'm OK with the jump drive FTL since FTL is so prevalent in sci-fi.

 

[Reynard]

The movie Apollo 13 and Tom Clancy novels are hard science fiction. They are based on actual known technology in fictional or semi fictional settings. the 2001 series is speculative science fiction though it may border on fantasy with the monoliths and their creators. HAL is highly speculative as is the later beanstalk and the super computer virus. Dave being turned into a super star baby.... the realm of fantasy.

Science fiction as we know it is almost impossible to make 'hard' but we see people too frequently label any element to a sci fi story as 'fantasy' claiming anything we can't experience as 'real' as we know it puts it into the category of supernatural or magic. People are using the term handwave too often to describe anything they can't pin as what they believe as real or possible. If that's the case then the overwhelming majority of science fiction is in fact handwave fiction.

Personally, if a story doesn't feature gods or magically powered space boats or aliens able to produce food and water from nowhere on a dead moon, it's 'science fiction' to me.

 

[Anonymous]

For me there's a diference between "theoretically possible someday" (scifi) and "never possible" (magic).

You could argue that future knowledge will make the "never possible" into possible, but since we know nothing about future knowledge, then we can assume anything we want about it, and it's all equally unverifiable. In other words, it's magic. If you can break the laws of reality to make FTL, and those laws say you can't have a magic unicorn, then there's nothing stopping you making a magic unicorn.

However, since so many people put FTL under "sci-fi" instead of "sci-fantasy", I just comply with the consensus to make it easier to talk to people.

 

[Reynard]

Weren't rocket ships and space travel once regarded as works of fantasy as in not possible, never gonna happen?

 

[Anonymous]

Weren't rocket ships and space travel once regarded as works of fantasy as in not possible, never gonna happen?

Yes but the question is about how you predict what is possible if the rules are unexpectedly different in the future? The answer is "You don't" which means anything you say is completely baseless i.e. it's all magic once you throw the rulebook out.

At some point in future the rules may change and we'll re-evaulate what's possible at that point. Until then, anything that breaks today's rules is magic.

 

[PsiTraveller]

I am looking at the Shaper vs Mechanist concept from Bruce Sterling. A ship with biological elements might be easier to repair or maintain. A biologically based system might be able to process asteroids in a different way, growing systems extracting ores and concentrating them. Even a system for a solar based food production system that could provide food for a planet is an interesting idea.

The vehicle handbook has bio tech weapons that can generate large amounts of energy. So the question pops up of whether or not this biologically created energy could be tapped and diverted into a battery for use with regular tech? Is there a bio converter to tap this energy?

 

[Anonymous]

The vehicle handbook has bio tech weapons that can generate large amounts of energy. So the question pops up of whether or not this biologically created energy could be tapped and diverted into a battery for use with regular tech? Is there a bio converter to tap this energy?

I don't have this book, but pedals should work. Otherwise the energy's probably in the form of heat (fat to burn) or electricty, which they already know how to utilise. A fusion reactor is just a heat source linked to a device to convert heat to electricity. Unless you're talking about shooting yourself with a bio-generated particle beam and using that to power a battery, in which case I wouldn't allow that for reasons of conservation of energy violation.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

The vehicle handbook has bio tech weapons that can generate large amounts of energy. So the question pops up of whether or not this biologically created energy could be tapped and diverted into a battery for use with regular tech? Is there a bio converter to tap this energy?

The biotech weapons in VH does not generate energy, they consume energy generated by the vehicle's power plant as usual.

The power plant may be biotech, but still generates energy conventionally, taking about as much mass/space/cost as normal systems.

 

[Anonymous]

I think he means this book:

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/102411/Special-Supplement-1-Biotech-Vehicles

Me thinks the free full preview on drivethru previews a bit too much.

From this we can see the vehicles seem to have no separate powerplant component, and the "electrostatic armor" in the preview automatically recharges periodically. From this I assume an inherent, inseparable biological energy source as part of each component. A bit like "if a human spits at someone, what powers that muscle?" (Te answer is the heat engine inside each biological cell)

edit: I meant to say chemical engine, and not heat engine.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

I think he means this book:

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/102411/Special-Supplement-1-Biotech-Vehicles

That seems to work like the MgT2 VH. The power plant is subsumed in the chassis, but it still exists presumably.

Me thinks the free full preview on drivethru previews a bit too much.

He, yes.

From this we can see the vehicles seem to have no separate powerplant component, ...

Neither does regular vehicles, it is included in the chassis.

... and the "electrostatic armor" in the preview automatically recharges periodically.

Biological electrostatic armour works just like regular electrostatic armour according to the preview. Only recharge period differs.

From this I assume an inherent, inseparable biological energy source as part of each component. A bit like "if a human spits at someone, what powers that muscle?" (Te answer is the chemical engine inside each biological cell)

Each individual cell is helpless without the circulatory system, lungs, and digestive tracts. The power may be distributed as sugars and oxygen instead of electricity, but biologicals still have a centralised power system.

 

[Anonymous]

From this I assume an inherent, inseparable biological energy source as part of each component. A bit like "if a human spits at someone, what powers that muscle?" (Te answer is the chemical engine inside each biological cell)

Each individual cell is helpless without the circulatory system, lungs, and digestive tracts. The power may be distributed as sugars and oxygen instead of electricity, but biologicals still have a centralised power system.

Sugars are fuel not power, and cells do have a reserve.

I see a fuel pump but I don't see a centralised power system. What component are you thinking of?

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Sugars are fuel not power, and cells do have a reserve.

Power is just a flow of energy. Sugars are fuel to a cell, but to e.g. a cow grass is fuel and sugars are a transient energy transport mechanism i.e. power.

I see a fuel pump but I don't see a centralised power system. What component are you thinking of?

As I said, circulatory system, heart, lungs, digestive tract. They transform ingested fuel to energy readily used by the rest of the body, and transports the energy to where it is needed.

 

[Anonymous]

For hydrocarbons, you know that's not correct. The dimensions for the SI symbols don't even match and I know you know this.

Electricity into an electric motor, maybe. For hydrocarbons into an organic chemical engine, no way. Sugars are fuel, and the fuel system is not part of the power train.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

For hydrocarbons, you know that's not correct. The dimensions for the SI symbols don't even match and I know you know this.

Each sugar molecule is a unit of energy for a biochemical machine. Sugar molecules transferred is a measure of energy transferred, measured in joule [J]. Sugar molecules transferred per unit of time is power, measured in J/s = W.

I see no major difference to, say, energy transferred as electromagnetic quanta, i.e. photons, or energy transferred by a bike chain to the wheel of a bicycle.

 

[steve98052]

A different way to look at the distinction between hard science fiction, fantasy, and the continuum between is the attention paid to self consistency. By that measure, game rules tend to run harder than novels, and novels tend to be harder than movies -- often even game rules based on movies.

Another consideration is how well the consequences of a fictional science, technology, or magic is thought through in terms of side effects. A good example from Traveller is the creation of momentum and kinetic energy from maneuver drives. If you push a big rock with a ship, it will end up with much more kinetic energy than the ship's power plant could have produced.

 

[Anonymous]

Another consideration is how well the consequences of a fictional science, technology, or magic is thought through in terms of side effects. A good example from Traveller is the creation of momentum and kinetic energy from maneuver drives. If you push a big rock with a ship, it will end up with much more kinetic energy than the ship's power plant could have produced.

You don't even need the rock to realise it's not using known physics. The mass of a ship and its internal cargo has no bearing on maneuver performance, which is based on hull volume. (edit: In classic, and mongoose 2, anyway. I'm not familar with other Travs; one could say it's gravitic which imparts equal acceleration on everything but then how's that generated?)

edit: Although I kind of think I get what you're saying. Sometimes they invent a working system but then forgot to rule on the side effects? However I think that would be very obvious if your drive was using known physics to begin with. For example if cargo mass affected acceleration i.e. it wasnt a magic engine, the rock towing problem would not exist.