Ship cost reduction as TL increases?

[swordtart]

There is more hydrogen in 14 cubic metres of water than there is in 14 cubic metres of liquid hydrogen.
14 cubic metres of water is 14,000kg which contains 1,556kg of hydrogen (hydrogen is 1/9 by mass of the water molecule), 14 cubic metres of liquid hydrogen is 1,000kg of hydrogen.
So 14 cubic metres of water actually contains more hydrogen than 14 cubic metres of liquid hydrogen.

Water - H ₂ O = 1+1+16 = 18
Hydrogen is 2/18=1/9

Water, liquid ammonia, and liquid methane all contain more hydrogen per 14 cubic metres than 14 cubic metres of liquid hydrogen.

Yep, sorry I forgot my 'A' level chemistry. I guess Hydrazine is the winner (assuming we are able to extract the hydrogen on the fly). I am going to have a beer and put my brain formally in neutral rather than having it in the false neutral it seems to be in.

So is unrefined fuel actually water or am I right that we still need the raw hydrogen for ship operations?

 

[Sigtrygg]

Excellent question, wish I could find an answer that makes sense to me.

If a ship scoops unrefined fuel it does so from the atmosphere of a gas giant - so we can assume a mix of hydrogen and lots of other gases.
If it dips from an ocean it is water and contaminants, or methane and contaminants, or ammonia and contaminates, depending on the "ocean". Similar will be extracted chiseling "ice" from asteroids, comets, KBOs etc.

 

[Arkathan]

Every reference we've ever had on the matter points to anything you can scoop up being unrefined.

 

[Vormaerin]

Yup. Pretty much "has it ever encountered hydrogen? Scoop it up!" T5 at least requires different contraptions with different extraction rates depending on whether you are "scooping" solid, liquid, or gas fuel.

 

[swordtart]

It is one of the less satisfying aspects of Traveller. "We are out of fuel for the power plant and life support is failing...", "Never mind, just piddle in this bucket, that should buy us a few days."

It reminds me of a joke about a nun running out of fuel and only has a chamber pot to collect fuel from the garage. As she is pouring it into the car's tank, praying out loud, she is passed by a Rabbi who stops to help saying, "Whilst I fundamentally disagree with many aspects of your religion, I can only be impressed by your faith".

 

[Vormaerin]

The core decision was that running out of gas wasn't an interesting element of gameplay, so making a big issue of it for real space travel was not worth the squeeze. You have to really screw up to have fuel issues.

Mind you, in classic traveller, using unrefined fuel was bad. Not only could you misjump, but it could damage your maneuver drive and power plant. Even when they introduced on board refineries, they were substantially larger than modern editions, so there was more of an opportunity cost to having them on the ship. Whereas today, it is such a no brainer that the idea anyone sells refined fuel barely makes sense.

 

[laughdad]

Traveller fusion fuel is hydrogen, Hydrogen fusion has issues that don't show up in the alternative physics of the Traveller rules.

Unless you're using Fusion Plus from the CSC, which gets longer endurance from deuterium enriched water. The Starship Operator's Manual goes has that description of the "Fusion Plus" cycle (which is not the same Fusion Plus of the CSC, T5, and TNE-FFE) which describes using the...separated...for lack of a better term, deuterium and tritium in the later stages of the process.

Real world, DOE is looking at deuterium (heavy water)/Tritium as a promising fuel for fusion reactors.

 

[laughdad]

Assuming the jump drive is only interested in stripping off the hydrogen atoms, which seems logical if you can use water as unrefined fuel, what happens with the contaminants?

Since I certainly would be interested in harvesting the oxygen.

That's what Miller and company describe happening with Fusion Plus in T5 wrt to feeding the O2 right back into the LS system.

 

[Condottiere]

We could remove the moisture at the same time as the carbon dioxide in the air recycling, and strain that out for fusion fuel.

 

[phavoc]

Something in regards to the discussion that hasn't (I think) been touched on is that as the TL increases, efficiency increases, but so do other things. Take, for example, the Model-T engine that drive the Model-T. It's rather small, and inefficient as compared to a modern engine, as is the car itself. Compare it to a Ford Taurus and the Taurus is superior in pretty much every way - longer range, more comfort, and heating/cooling. However it's also bigger, more expensive and basically does the same thing as the Model-T. It gets its passengers from Point A to Point B.

As we've added tech we have also added complexity and costs along with capability. The reason nobody but a custom enthusiast builds replica Model-T's today is that nobody wants one. Same reason there is no market for a builder to make a modernized Model-T - there is no market for it.
The only reason that this is discussed is because gamers like to Min/Max things. In reality if you had the TL-15 available to you, then you are going to take all the advantages that TL-15 gives you over the TL-12 ship. And like a guy in Somalia who drives his TL-8 Mercedes in his TL-5/6 country, you'll find a mechanic who services your car (or do it yourself) and you'll order the parts if/when you need them to be shipped in.

 

[Anstett]

Whereas today, it is such a no brainer that the idea anyone sells refined fuel barely makes sense.

It does create more areas for Pirates to operate in.

 

[Arkathan]

Something in regards to the discussion that hasn't (I think) been touched on is that as the TL increases, efficiency increases, but so do other things. Take, for example, the Model-T engine that drive the Model-T. It's rather small, and inefficient as compared to a modern engine, as is the car itself. Compare it to a Ford Taurus and the Taurus is superior in pretty much every way - longer range, more comfort, and heating/cooling. However it's also bigger, more expensive and basically does the same thing as the Model-T. It gets its passengers from Point A to Point B.

As we've added tech we have also added complexity and costs along with capability. The reason nobody but a custom enthusiast builds replica Model-T's today is that nobody wants one. Same reason there is no market for a builder to make a modernized Model-T - there is no market for it.
The only reason that this is discussed is because gamers like to Min/Max things. In reality if you had the TL-15 available to you, then you are going to take all the advantages that TL-15 gives you over the TL-12 ship. And like a guy in Somalia who drives his TL-8 Mercedes in his TL-5/6 country, you'll find a mechanic who services your car (or do it yourself) and you'll order the parts if/when you need them to be shipped in.

Say you want a j1/m1 ship with civilian sensors. You don't need any high tech gear and are really leery of high mortgages. Do you buy the best that a TL 12 shipyard can put out because you can, or if you could, would you leverage the TL to get that TL9 ship at a discount, knowing that you can get TL12 parts for it at almost any port along your way?

It sort of has been brought up before. The example of an old radio. We aren't building an old radio, we are building an underperforming radio (by current standards) in the same form factor as an old one for less money.

 

[Condottiere]

You do what we do.

You offshore production.

 

[NOLATrav]

It’s all very amorphous. While some things are detailed with how they differ at advancing TLs, most of it is undefined. The T5 paradigm goes too far IMO, way too fiddly, the MgT paradigm not far enough, way too much wiggle room. I think a five step TL progression works well, it’s what I’ve been using IMTU. And as I’ve gained the courage to apply it ruthlessly to my campaign it has given me clarity on a quite a few things that in the rules can best be described as open to interpretation.

 

[swordtart]

Purely from a game mechanics stand point why should a functionally identical item have substantially different "book" price in two systems that might only be a parsec apart.

If you are in a pocket empire with no external trade then the prices can be whatever the market will bear without reference to the "standard" prices but in a setting with extensive trade and mobility the prices will be closer to the norm and the greater the trade the closer to the norm.

 

[Condottiere]

In theory, the same currency is Imperiumwide.

Production costs could vary, for the normal reasons.

If there is demand, someone will meet it.

So if for some reason there is no supply of a technological level nine item on a technological level fifteen world, if the means of production are locally available, then it's usually a question of opportunity cost, possibly in a zero sum economy.

 

[Arkathan]

Purely from a game mechanics stand point why should a functionally identical item have substantially different "book" price in two systems that might only be a parsec apart.

If you are in a pocket empire with no external trade then the prices can be whatever the market will bear without reference to the "standard" prices but in a setting with extensive trade and mobility the prices will be closer to the norm and the greater the trade the closer to the norm.

Price of a Burger King Whopper in the US.
Price of a Burger King Whopper in the UK.

Every time my players buy anything I have them do an opposed broker/streetwise roll and alter the book price accordingly.

Last game, they were looking for robot parts. I rolled a 2, they rolled a 14. What luck! You found a company having a liquidation sale. Everything must go.

 

[laughdad]

Yup. Pretty much "has it ever encountered hydrogen? Scoop it up!" T5 at least requires different contraptions with different extraction rates depending on whether you are "scooping" solid, liquid, or gas fuel.

The Starship Operator's Manual adopts the T5 model.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Mongoose Traveller doesn't always line up with T5, to base a "core" MgT supplement on a different game system with different tech assumptions and different rules was always going to lead to issues.

Unless the next edition of MgT and MgT HG moves closer to T5 then SOM remains a bit of an oddity.

 

[swordtart]

Price of a Burger King Whopper in the US.
Price of a Burger King Whopper in the UK.

Every time my players buy anything I have them do an opposed broker/streetwise roll and alter the book price accordingly.

Last game, they were looking for robot parts. I rolled a 2, they rolled a 14. What luck! You found a company having a liquidation sale. Everything must go.

We are not talking about a Cr5 consumable we are talking about a multi-mega credit starship. The cost of transport is not a small proportion of the overall cost of the burger. We were also not talking about fluctuations in the market we were talking about the base price being lowered when bought from higher TL starports.

No normal person is going to travel to America to buy one burger*. Brits did however cross the channel to buy wine and beer in bulk from France.

*I have no doubt that some overpaid celebrity may have actually done that.

Lets look at it another way.

A 1 ton TL8 power plant is MCr0.5.
A 1 ton TL12 power plant is MCr1.

If we assume the default saving from fabs.

If a TL14 fab makes a TL8 plant it costs it MCr0.25 in feedstock and if you sell it at list price you make MCr0.25.
If the same TL14 fab makes the TL12 plant, it costs MCr0.5 in feedstock and if you sell it at list price you make MCr0.5.

The cost to run the fab itself probably needs to be deducted, but it is the same for both Plants, and it takes the same amount of time. If you are able to build TL12 plants, why would you bother to make TL8 plants, let alone let them go for a discount.