On 3D printers in Ship Lockers
- Thread starter Kerenski
- Start date
Nice idea - I'd probably (for "Feel" continuity) say any starship would have a 3D Printer in the ship's locker or maybe the engine room's machine shop for fabricating simple and not-so-simple mechanical parts. Just like a lathe in a modern ship's machine shop. This even helps with the classic problem of "do we have a <drive widget X>?" The answer is, "Sure, I can 'fab one, but I can't guarantee it will hold. We're getting low on fabridust though...."
A party could print up some basic equipment in a pinch - crowbars, wrenches, etc. Maybe even slug throwers, but I would reduce their accuracy since the printer won't know how to gunsmith the pieces together precisely. (Forget reality, this is for Traveller purposes, and you can't take people out of Traveller; it's just not how the game is.)
To keep this from turning into a "matter replicator", which would ruin Traveller's economic assumptions, I would always have printed items be inferior to other manufacturing techniques, at least before TL 15, and even then I would suspect many people would look down on "mass produced crap like that".
A party could print up some basic equipment in a pinch - crowbars, wrenches, etc. Maybe even slug throwers, but I would reduce their accuracy since the printer won't know how to gunsmith the pieces together precisely. (Forget reality, this is for Traveller purposes, and you can't take people out of Traveller; it's just not how the game is.)
To keep this from turning into a "matter replicator", which would ruin Traveller's economic assumptions, I would always have printed items be inferior to other manufacturing techniques, at least before TL 15, and even then I would suspect many people would look down on "mass produced crap like that".
LegendaryJWP
Mongoose
hdan said:
it's about the only way to make the acquisition of things stay interesting in a world with devices to make whatever you like. It leads to people coveting hand-made items over fabricated items, regardless of quality, just by virtue of the uniqueness of the work of a master crafts-person.
Either the fabricated items need to be of cheap quality, with a decent chance of physical failure; or be obviously and overtly fabricated (say of a uniform color or unpleasant texture) to keep the stigma up on them. "Nice paper pants you got there, mister" and "This? A lovely little man on one of the islands on Regina makes them. No more than eight or nine a year, the take so much time, but they're so very worth it" would be the sort of environment you want to engender.
The key is 'what' you can fabricate.
For a washer, screw or wingnut, fair enough - ultimately it's a shaped piece of 'normal' metal or plastic. It will save you money on spares because instead of carrying ten off everything, you carry enough feedstock to make half that, but only make the items that actually fail.
For feed hozes, bolts, etc, I don't see it as a problem.
I can't imagine a 'wall-mart' version of the technology ever really coping with Crystaliron or Superdense components needed for structurally critical bits of the ship, though. Nor is it going to make equivalent tech circuit boards or sensor/micro-actuator components. That limits its utility a bit.
For a washer, screw or wingnut, fair enough - ultimately it's a shaped piece of 'normal' metal or plastic. It will save you money on spares because instead of carrying ten off everything, you carry enough feedstock to make half that, but only make the items that actually fail.
For feed hozes, bolts, etc, I don't see it as a problem.
I can't imagine a 'wall-mart' version of the technology ever really coping with Crystaliron or Superdense components needed for structurally critical bits of the ship, though. Nor is it going to make equivalent tech circuit boards or sensor/micro-actuator components. That limits its utility a bit.
Tools for Frontier Living goes into this in some depth - a book _not_ just for 2300AD...
I'd say that for smaller ships, you'd probably just carry a few spares (molycircs, things that can't be easily 'printed'). Military ships that stay out on patrol for long periods or merchies that ply remote routes are more likely to carry 3-D CAD/CAM printers and the feedstock.
Ships that ply the civilized routes on a regular basis would only carry minimal tools and parts because they would pick up the new part(s) at their next port of call.
Engineering support ships, especially naval support ones, would most likely have a bevy of machines designed to turn out as many parts as possible to repair ships. I guess the only real limitation would be how much you could recycle existing materials to make new ones, or if you had to rely upon new feedstocks only.
And, of course, at what point in your complexity would it be possible to 'print' something.
Ships that ply the civilized routes on a regular basis would only carry minimal tools and parts because they would pick up the new part(s) at their next port of call.
Engineering support ships, especially naval support ones, would most likely have a bevy of machines designed to turn out as many parts as possible to repair ships. I guess the only real limitation would be how much you could recycle existing materials to make new ones, or if you had to rely upon new feedstocks only.
And, of course, at what point in your complexity would it be possible to 'print' something.
Kerenski said:
Yes. IMTU 3D printers come in as crude prototypes in TL7, to full use by TL12, TL's 8-11 they can't make complex devices yet, afterwards yes.
The epochs of my TU are:
TL 0-4 Pre-Industrial
TL 5-8 Industrial
TL 9-11 Post-Industrial (the beginnings of an interstellar society)
TL 12-15 Interstellar (post-scarcity)
TL 16+ (beginnings of trans/post-humanism; eg AI's etc.)
AndrewW
Emperor Mongoose
Yes, of course. It is a reasonable technological development,Kerenski said:
and it saves a lot of bookkeeping. With a 3D printer on the
ship I never have to think about the simple stuff in the ship's
locker and whether it can realistically hold all that stuff. If the
characters need some cutlery, a screw fitting into a Rigelian
device or the parts of an aquarium, the 3D printer can make
it, either with its stored blueprints or ones designed by the
characters (another use for that Computer skill).
Rikki Tikki Traveller
Cosmic Mongoose
Rather than allowing a 3D printer in the Ship's Locker, I might consider allowing it in higher tech Mechanical Took Kits.
An interesting article I came across regarding 3D-printed AR-15 knockoff. It worked fine on the first round, but broke by the fifth round. In comparison a .22cal printed gun lasted at least 200 rds. But the larger-caliber .556 round certainly allows for more pressure to be generated at the time of the powder detonation.
They are going back to the drawing board on their design, but possibly 3D printers may have an inherent flaw in regards to patterning. For Star Trek geeks, the replicators they used were very common for things like food and drinks, but larger parts and more complicated things were never replicated, but produced the old-fashioned way.
So maybe there will be a line in the proverbial sand where it makes sense to use a 3D part and other places where the parts would be inferior to 'normal' manufactured pieces. I suppose for simple things you could allow it to work the same, but for anything that took a lot of strain it would only be considered an 'emergency' patch and would run the risk of being broken if say combat were entered.
http://news.yahoo.com/3d-printable-gun-part-fails-sixth-shot-225653684.html
They are going back to the drawing board on their design, but possibly 3D printers may have an inherent flaw in regards to patterning. For Star Trek geeks, the replicators they used were very common for things like food and drinks, but larger parts and more complicated things were never replicated, but produced the old-fashioned way.
So maybe there will be a line in the proverbial sand where it makes sense to use a 3D part and other places where the parts would be inferior to 'normal' manufactured pieces. I suppose for simple things you could allow it to work the same, but for anything that took a lot of strain it would only be considered an 'emergency' patch and would run the risk of being broken if say combat were entered.
http://news.yahoo.com/3d-printable-gun-part-fails-sixth-shot-225653684.html
FreeTrav
Cosmic Mongoose
I would hold that a shipboard 3D printer is good enough for 'Yeah, I [the engineer] can fab the part, and it'll get us to {mumble} port, but no way in hell can it pass inspection.' {mumble} port can be as much as three jumps away - but putting the fabbed part through the fourth jump is risking a significantly elevated chance of misjump. Or equivalent durability/risk of catastrophic failure for parts that aren't jump-drive parts. I suppose you could also use them for emergency rations with the proper feedstock, but the best you'll get when you program it for roast beef is going to be more like roast-beef-shaped tofu.
The idea here is that I sorta want to avoid the Star Trek replicator trope.
The idea here is that I sorta want to avoid the Star Trek replicator trope.
phavoc said:
I remember one episode where Geordi (sp?) said that he could replicate complex engine parts (the part names escape me as I watched it 20+ yrs ago) without a problem. During all of the TV series about the only 2 things that couldn't be made in a large enough replicator were positronic brains & gold pressed latinum.
Captain Jonah
Mongoose
Star Treks fabrication is sub molecular assembly based on transporter tech. They can literally make anything from anything, they probably carry hundreds of tons of high density blocks of “Stuff” in transporter storage so they can break them down and form anything they need.
It makes the ships extremely long duration trips possible as they need no supply and can beam in dust and space debris to restock. This also explains why they have no economy in the federation since they can make anything from anything any economy or currency would collapse.
3D printers build things up layer by layer from dust or paste of that specific material. If you want a copper part you need copper paste/dust. Need a silver part or gold part of steel etc then you need a container of those materials.
Exotic materials are not possible so you cannot make bonded super dense parts or even Crystaliron. You can make complex parts or moving parts within other parts once you get the layers down past 100th of a mm or smaller. At present 1/10th of a mm is simply not accurate enough and needs a lot of clean up afterwards. You could run out parts in metals and plastics but if they are expected to be precise fits they need the fine layers filing down which requires that workshop/engineers bench.
I would think every ship has a 3D printer/fabricator on board, maintenance supplies consist of items that cannot be “printed” and pots of paste/dust for the printers. It means you don’t need to specify exactly what your stores consist of, just by a few pallets of general paste/dust and a short list of specific items for your ship. So a Far trader has a few items like a jump modulator control unit for a 2 parsec drive and a stack of generic printer pallets.
Still I suspect that what we are thinking of as doable is far less than the tech can do. Consider that today we are getting close to cloning muscle tissue and can already 3D print bone and grow DNA neutral cartilage. Replacement limbs are not so far off for us. What is going to be possible in 50 years time. I always puzzle at the crude level of Star Treks med bay and how little they can do since with Star Trek tech as long as the brain is intact or you have a recent beam log nothing will kill you.
Traveller is not so advanced but an average engineering room should be able to fix most problems or damage and with workshops on board larger ships only specific parts made of unusual materials or of extremely complexity would need to be carried. Everything else can be 3D fabricated.
It makes the ships extremely long duration trips possible as they need no supply and can beam in dust and space debris to restock. This also explains why they have no economy in the federation since they can make anything from anything any economy or currency would collapse.
3D printers build things up layer by layer from dust or paste of that specific material. If you want a copper part you need copper paste/dust. Need a silver part or gold part of steel etc then you need a container of those materials.
Exotic materials are not possible so you cannot make bonded super dense parts or even Crystaliron. You can make complex parts or moving parts within other parts once you get the layers down past 100th of a mm or smaller. At present 1/10th of a mm is simply not accurate enough and needs a lot of clean up afterwards. You could run out parts in metals and plastics but if they are expected to be precise fits they need the fine layers filing down which requires that workshop/engineers bench.
I would think every ship has a 3D printer/fabricator on board, maintenance supplies consist of items that cannot be “printed” and pots of paste/dust for the printers. It means you don’t need to specify exactly what your stores consist of, just by a few pallets of general paste/dust and a short list of specific items for your ship. So a Far trader has a few items like a jump modulator control unit for a 2 parsec drive and a stack of generic printer pallets.
Still I suspect that what we are thinking of as doable is far less than the tech can do. Consider that today we are getting close to cloning muscle tissue and can already 3D print bone and grow DNA neutral cartilage. Replacement limbs are not so far off for us. What is going to be possible in 50 years time. I always puzzle at the crude level of Star Treks med bay and how little they can do since with Star Trek tech as long as the brain is intact or you have a recent beam log nothing will kill you.
Traveller is not so advanced but an average engineering room should be able to fix most problems or damage and with workshops on board larger ships only specific parts made of unusual materials or of extremely complexity would need to be carried. Everything else can be 3D fabricated.
FreeTrav said:
Yeah, agreed. Takes the fun outa messing with the players! Simple things, like feeding a broken plastic chair into the your 3D printer to print a new one makes sense. Feeding it smelted hull metal to make a new armor plate, or feeding it the broken jump regulator to make a new one... not so much.
F33D said:
There were other things/materials that just weren't replicated. When they were doing the Voyager series they used a bio-synthetic CPU-type core for a lot of systems. They were also not able to be replicated.
Traveller does have some equipment that lets you break down biomatter and 'replicate' new food at the molecular level. Similar to what Star Trek had. But evidently, based upon the other episodes of Star Trek, "real" food seemed to still have a market, as did "real" wine and other spirits. The trend being that processed foods can keep you alive and may not taste terrible, but cooked food from fresh ingredients are the most desirable.
