Ramscoops on a Deep Space Station
- Thread starter Fresnel
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Ramscoops require you to be actively maneuvering. Your guess is as good as mine if the 1/1000 of an M-Drive is enough "active maneuvering" 
But you do have to have the M-Drive.
Anyway, the reality is that Traveller's "empty hexes" and the geopolitics of the Rifts don't actually hold up to all the technologies added to the game since the setting was introduced.
But you do have to have the M-Drive.Anyway, the reality is that Traveller's "empty hexes" and the geopolitics of the Rifts don't actually hold up to all the technologies added to the game since the setting was introduced.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
You have worker bee drones collecting the hydrogen nectar.
Ramscoops require you to be actively maneuvering. Your guess is as good as mine if the 1/1000 of an M-Drive is enough "active maneuvering"
Anyway, the reality is that Traveller's "empty hexes" and the geopolitics of the Rifts don't actually hold up to all the technologies added to the game since the setting was introduced.
Technically even station keeping is a manoeuvre. However, this line doesn’t make any physical sense imo For a ram scoop to operate (well), you need to be moving relative to the interstellar gas ‘cloud’ you are flying through. I believe this would relate to the galaxy spin. The faster the better.
So you should be fine accelerating to a sufficient velocity in system and then jumping to the calibration point. Tbh, the ram scoop system is OP imo. You can easily complete Jump-1 refueling in <6 days - a normal wilderness refuelling operation can take more time. It provide fuel for both J-drive and general ship power. It is not super expensive or bulky.
You might rule that Rifts generally have low densities of interstellar gas, but is that true?
Btw, I cannot find its TL. Am I being blind?
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
There are quite a number of components without a default technological level.
Ramscoops in High Guard are not generally better than wilderness refueling in terms of speed. You have a 1000 ton ship. Ramscoops are 1%+5 tons. So 15 tons. They gather 75 tons per week. So two weeks to refuel for a jump 1 + power plant. That's not better than refueling at a gas giant, which just requires fuel scoops that take up 0 tons. Of course, you could put in larger ramscoops to solve that problem if you have the space on the ship.
Naturally, the Deep Space Exploration Book has a totally different ramscoop that would be 45 tons and take months to refuel the ship. le sigh.
I think MgT2e is the first Traveller to have ramscoops as a thing that's considered a normal part of the rules. In T:NE, they were listed with the alternate drive types that you could use instead of jump drives.
I don't know what OP means exactly in this sort of context since its not a competitive game, but certainly they alter some core assumptions about how things travel if used in Charted Space.
Naturally, the Deep Space Exploration Book has a totally different ramscoop that would be 45 tons and take months to refuel the ship. le sigh.
I think MgT2e is the first Traveller to have ramscoops as a thing that's considered a normal part of the rules. In T:NE, they were listed with the alternate drive types that you could use instead of jump drives.
I don't know what OP means exactly in this sort of context since its not a competitive game, but certainly they alter some core assumptions about how things travel if used in Charted Space.
Assuming you install the minimum system:
Fuel Required: 103 (J-1 per 4 weeks operation): 103
Collection Rate: 75 tons per week, 10.7 per day
Collection time: 9.6 days
This ship doesn't need to:
I use the term OP in the context of the other Rift crossing mechanics - given in the DSE book. Why sweat all that when you can get a ramscoop?
Fuel Required: 103 (J-1 per 4 weeks operation): 103
Collection Rate: 75 tons per week, 10.7 per day
Collection time: 9.6 days
This ship doesn't need to:
- Be streamlined
- Plot jump routes with Gas Giants or other wilderness refueling opportunities
- Navigate in-system to Gas Giants, Asteroid fields et al
- Fear being ambushed while at these locations
- Fear a poor astrogation roll will throw you so far from a fuel cache it will be unreachable.
I use the term OP in the context of the other Rift crossing mechanics - given in the DSE book. Why sweat all that when you can get a ramscoop?
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
You balance the ratio of volume of the ramscoops over the fuel tanks, in relation to how fast you want them filled.
The advantage being you don't have to pay retail, nor attempt wildcatting.
The advantage being you don't have to pay retail, nor attempt wildcatting.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Ramscoops make more sense than collectors.
But if you have both:
But if you have both:
Rifts as originally conceived in Charted Space aren't even a real thing using the current rules. They are more like "inexplicably unmapped spaces".
You would have to liberally apply the Jump Shoals & Reefs far more liberally than currently (from the Great Rift sourcebook) to make them remotely as challenging as the history of Charted Space suggests.
Sigtrygg
Emperor Mongoose
As I see it we are heading towards one of a few choices:
ignore the real universe
ignore the supplemental details of "unmapped hex" contents provided by the extended rules hidden away in game books, often with different rules for the same thing
embrace the chaos and come up with an idea of why "unmapped hexes" are so difficult to jump to and utilise as truck stops.
ignore the real universe
ignore the supplemental details of "unmapped hex" contents provided by the extended rules hidden away in game books, often with different rules for the same thing
embrace the chaos and come up with an idea of why "unmapped hexes" are so difficult to jump to and utilise as truck stops.
At first glance.. .Nah. A ship is a ship, and a station a station. Once you put 1G engines on it should no longer be considered a station but a ship. While, in theory, a station could run its station keeping drives for long periods to accelerate to higher velocities, this is a classic player-inspired way to get around the rules. Starships operate at much higher velocities than stations, thus a station concept like this would fail the common-sense rule. Make the station into more of a ship with at least 1G speed and then you could implement such a thing. As it stands the publisher does not always provide good explanations to defeat such workarounds.
The inherent problem with a ramscoop is that is it collecting interstellar hydrogen or effluent from a star? interstellar hydrogen is going to be less sparse, but within a system and the closer you get to a star the more outgassing and other ejections from the star there are. It's kind of like the M-drive issue - if you get too far from a star your drive has no field to work against and fails. But if the drive is based upon that principle, it should also mean it's more efficient the closer you are to the star itself. It doesn't make a lot of sense for it to work at 100% and then zero % with no gradiation there. I think one has to be careful about mixing too many sci-fi concepts within a single game without first seeing how all the combinations would work and how they (may) break other things you are trying to do.
Nothing wrong with, for example, having multiple technologies that essentially do the same thing - STL or FTL drive technologies for example. But things like that typically would require different racial makeups rather than just the same racial entities. The jump drive vs warp drive each have advantages, and ultimately one would triumph over the other (VHS vs Betamax, etc). One can suspend some belief in a game system that doesn't follow reality - it's a game after all. But I think the successful game franchises always keep their own underlying architecture on a firm base to avoid some of these things.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
You can still tow the station.
MasterGwydion
Emperor Mongoose
Why are We calling it a station? If it has an M-Drive and a J-Drive, it's a ship, just a really big one.
Edit: HG has corrected Me on this.
Edit: HG has corrected Me on this.
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If you really wanted to point out the howling problem with this "craft" - it is economic.
This thing costs 95 BCr.
Mortgage: 4,740 MCr per year (395 MCr per month)
Maintenance will be 95 MCr per year.
The crew costs are 9 MCr per year
Total Yearly Costs: 4844 MCr
The craft generates 1.6 million tons of fuel per year. So to break even the ship would need to sell it's fuel at 3027.5 Cr per ton. Assuming you want a return on your investment, you might charge 5000 Cr per ton. So the economy case would have to be very strong to support this sort of infrastructure project.
It is the sort of thing a government might fund - hoping for GDP growth over the long term. Without the mortgage interest, the costs become more reasonable.
This thing costs 95 BCr.
Mortgage: 4,740 MCr per year (395 MCr per month)
Maintenance will be 95 MCr per year.
The crew costs are 9 MCr per year
Total Yearly Costs: 4844 MCr
The craft generates 1.6 million tons of fuel per year. So to break even the ship would need to sell it's fuel at 3027.5 Cr per ton. Assuming you want a return on your investment, you might charge 5000 Cr per ton. So the economy case would have to be very strong to support this sort of infrastructure project.
It is the sort of thing a government might fund - hoping for GDP growth over the long term. Without the mortgage interest, the costs become more reasonable.
My main point of irritation (other than the rules conflicting) is that no thought was given to why this is available now and not before. The Imperium and the Heirate have had their territory split by the Rift for many centuries. So why wasn't any of this done already?
There are ways to do that. A lot more use of "jump space terrain". Or making the necessary technology be TL16 stuff that is just becoming available in experimental prototypes. Probably other good reasons.
It's another case (imho) of conflict between what belongs in the rules and what belongs in Charted Space. Deep Space Exploration and World Builder's Handbook should absolutely give you rules and tools for doing the kind of settings where this is important. Ramscoops belong in that category too.
But the isolation of worlds not on a main and the geopolitical impact of the Great Rift (and other rifts) is pretty baked into how Charted Space works.
MasterGwydion
Emperor Mongoose
This could be fixed by simply making all Rifts Jumpspace Anamolies. Every jump into a Rift takes two or three times the jump number to go that distance. Say a jump 2 would take a J-4 or J-6 Drive, but for the Astrogation and Engineering checks count as if it were 4 or 6 parsecs distant and not it's real distance of 2 parsecs. This fixes the problem and is elegant. It requires no change to the rules of Traveller and only a one sentence addition to the setting a Charted Space.
Why do these jumpspace anomolies exist in Charted Space and not in other settings using the Traveller rules? Who cares. Let the Referees come up with their own reasons.
Edit: Make any system with no other worlds within J-3, part of the Jumpspace Anomoly. This then covers all of Charted Space with interesting Anomolies for the players and polities to navigate around or otherwise deal with.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
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