Ship Design Philosophy

[Condottiere]

Starships: Engineering and Cheapest Jump Drive

G. The other choice being to accept energy inefficiency.

H. You're paying eleven and a quarter megastarbux for a ten tonne jump drive that draws thirty percent more power.

I. Are the capacitors cheaper as well, considering they would have the same energy density, presumably?

J. If it's the same capacitors, that's minus six megastarbux leaving you with five and a quarter megastarbux for four tonnes each of overhead and jump core.

K. 656'250 starbux per tonne.

 

[Condottiere]

Starships: Engineering and Cheapest Jump Drive

L. Late jump seems at best masochistic.

M. Longer transit times can be a pain, but in Traveller context, potentially (more) dangerous.

N. Nothing seems to change, except that the jump shadow has a greater area of effect.

O. If you could isolate that to overhead, overhead becomes incredibly cheap.

P. Eleven and a quarter megastarbux, minus six megastarbux, minus four and a half megastarbux for default jump core, three quarters of a megastarbux for four tonnes of overhead.

 

[Condottiere]

Starships: Engineering and Cheapest Jump Drive

Q. Capacitors cost three megastarbux per tonne, and available at technological level nine.

R. Budgetted variant drops energy capacity to forty points from fifty, at one and four fifths megastarbux per tonne, and also available at technological level nine.

S. Size reduction should make them more energy dense, in ten percent increments, from technological level ten to twelve.

T. Energy efficiency would make most capacitors capacity mostly redundant.

U. Decreased fuel usage probably figured out how to minimize fuel wastage.

 

[Condottiere]

Starships: Engineering and Cheapest Jump Drive

Q. Capacitors have usually a safety margin of two hundred fifty percent.

R. And then you have an extra tonne in the overhead.

S. Increased size capacitors with default jump core would drop that to two hundred percent.

T. Ship-board batteries are designed to store power until needed. They can be recharged in any round with excess Power not being used by other systems. Technological level ten, one tenth megastarbux per tonne, forty power points.

U. Word of god is that you can use other types of fast recharging batteries.

 

[Condottiere]

Starships: Engineering and Cheapest Jump Drive

V. So the cheapest jump drive that can safely be demonstrably cheapest is budgetted increased size.

W. (Minimum) ten tonnes, nine megastarbux, one hundred twenty parsec tonnes, technological level nine.

X. Energy inefficiency is the better bet for anything for more than one hundred twenty parsec tonnes.

Y. Per thousand parsec tonnes jump core/capacitors, six and a quarter tonnes versus thirty power points.

Z. Which could three quarter tonne technological ten battery at an extra seventy five kilostarbux, leaving five and a half tonnes for potential revenue earner.

 

[Condottiere]

Starships: Structure and Cheapest Hull

1. Would have to be a hundred tonne planetoid.

2. That's two fifths of a megastarbux for eighty tonnes of usable volume.

3. Also, bridge costs are calculated per hundred tonnes of hull, so a tonne less wouldn't make a difference.

4. And a tonne more doubles the cost.

5. Since cheapest jump drive only can only range out one hundred twenty parsec tonnes, you probably can save ten tonnes in fuel.

6. Optionally, if there was a scrapped Shuttle hull, that might be affordable.

7. An empty shell that needs minimum refurbishment.

8. Current price for scrap stainless steel seems to be fifty cents per kilogramme.

9. If the hull metal is titanium steel, it can't be much more expensive.

 

[Condottiere]

Starships: Structure and Cheapest Hull

A. At a modified five kilostarbux per useable tonne, you get life support and gravitational tiles.

B. At best, ungravitated dispersed structure light structure would be nine and three eighths kilostarbux per (useable) tonne, though you do get life support.

C. You could replicate gravity through the use of sustained acceleration.

D. Problem is it's uncertain if that would work in the jump bubble.

E. A week spent in microgravity isn't particularly healthy for humans.

F. And if you do so regularly, as part of the starship crew, you might want to apply for hazard pay.

 

[Condottiere]

Starships: Structure and Cheapest Hull

G. Still have that balance of twenty tonnes.

H. You could attach a ship's boat as a ground to orbit connector.

I. Or, install an external cargo mount.

J. That's an extra twenty kilostarbux for twenty tonnes of externalized cargo.

K. Jump net would cost three times as much.

 

[Condottiere]

Starships: Ramscoops
1. Ramscoops are passive hydrogen collectors that operate automatically whenever a starship is manoeuvring in normal (non-jump) space.

2. Ramscoop ships do not need fuel scoops, nor do they need fuel processors since the hydrogen is processed and purified as it is collected.

3. The typical configuration for ramscoops is an array of cylinders or similar structures outfitted on the exterior of a ship, co-located with its fuel tanks.

4. Because of the bulkiness of the collectors, ships outfitted with ramscoops cannot perform atmospheric re-entry without damaging the ramscoops and are therefore rarely streamlined.

5. If the ship is docked or otherwise immobile, ramscoops cease to function but will automatically resume operation once the ship starts manoeuvring again.

6. (Minimum) ten tonne ramscoop collects fifty tonnes of processed hydrogen per week and costs two and a half megastarbux.

7. I estimate it takes seven years continuous operation to make back the investment, at one hundred fifty starbux per unrefined fuel retail.

8. Twelve tonnes would require one day, sixteen hours, nineteen minutes and twelve seconds to acquire.

9. So you can jump into empty hexes, on a single tanks worth.

 

[Sigtrygg]

50t of hydrogen is 700 cubic metres of liquid hydrogen.

Any idea what volume of "empty space" you would have to scoop to get this...

 

[Condottiere]

Much to my astonishment, this is not mentioned in High Guard.

I would suppose that the formula would be acceleration factor times one tonne ramscoop equals five tonnes hydrogen per week, though in this case, acceleration must occur, but actual factor is irrelevant.

Constant acceleration over one week would cover quite a bit of area: transit times estimates that at a billion klix.

 

[Condottiere]

Starships: Engineering and Chemical Power Plant

1. Nominally, a hundred tonne hull requires ten power points per turn for absolute basic systems.

2. That's a hundred points per hour, twenty four hundred per day, sixteen thousand eight hundred power points per week.

3. That's two hundred eighty tonnes of technological level twelve batteries.

4. Two tonnes of chemical power plant outputs ten power points per turn.

5. That would require ten tonnes of fuel per week.

6. Nominally, fifteen hundred starbux for unrefined fuel.

7. Ramscoops would eliminate that direct operating cost.

8. And mechanics can operate chemical power plants, rather than requiring specialized engineers.

9. The technology is available at level seven.

 

[Condottiere]

Starships: Engineering and Reactionary Rockets

1. Well, it isn't jump drive science.

2. Not being a rocket scientist myself, I think the trick was figuring out flow dynamics and material science.

3. Now with super computer reconstruction, they've probably figured out how to optimize performance.

4. Three dee printing manufactures parts without joints.

5. Likely, repairs involves just the complete replacement of the component.

6. That can be done by mechanics.

7. Also the supervision of operation.

8. Continuous operation seems unlikely, considering fuel consumption.

9. However, like jump drives, that probably has no effect on annual maintenance costs.

 

[Condottiere]

Starships: Engineering and Reactionary Rockets

A. Reactionary rockets become available at technological level seven.

B. Acceleration factor ranges from zero to three, which is probably about the optimum range for human tolerance and commercial application.

C. Technological level ten provides maximum fuel efficiency for customized models of the above.

D. There is no separate inertial compensation possible for the gravitational effects of reactionary rockets.

E. And even at maximum efficiency, that's one half rocket volume per hour of full acceleration.

F. And at best that's like three days of acceleration at factor one.

 

[Condottiere]

Starships: Engineering and Reactionary Rockets

G. In theory, if you add ramscoops, you could feed the rockets with fuel simultaneous with useage.

H. Problem is, that would take up a third of volume for a constant factor one acceleration.

I. It's pretty clear that in most cases, users were quite happy to give up rockets for gravitational drives, despite their increased complexity, for the same reason they moved from chemical power plants to fusion reactors.

J. They don't guzzle fuel and are smaller in size for the same performance.

K. Otherwise, the concept would be called a jet rocket.

 

[Condottiere]

Starships: Engineering and Reactionary Rockets

L. In comparison, a manoeuvre drive factor one for a hundred tonne hull costs two megastarbux and weighs one tonne, plus a one tonne early fusion reactor to power it, at half a megastarbux.

M. A two tonne rocket costs two fifths of a megastarbux, doesn't need energy, but does need a two and a half tonne fuel tank, with three hundred thirty starbux worth of fuel.

N. Rocket powered spacecraft would be optimal as orbital and satellite connectors, and rather pushing it for interplanetary transport.

O. Especially, if you have a source of almost free fuel.

P. And then you can combine that with a chemical power plant.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Engineering, Reactionary Rockets, and g-LOC

1. For commercial spacecraft.

2. Factor one acceleration in orbit and transit to satellites causes no difficulties to task accomplishment nor health.

3. Seventy percent gravitational effect should cause no adverse health effects, nor difficulty in task accomplishment.

4. G-force factor two could cause minor difficulty in task accomplishment, unless you have pilot or flyer skill.

5. This is where it gets interesting.

6. Is that exactly g-force factor two and above?

7. Because if not, you can accelerate at one point nine and still have no difficulty in task accomplishment.

8. With health, I tend to make it at one hundred forty percent Terran norm.

9. Might be a loophole, but that means you can install a factor two reactionary rocket, and accelerate at one point nine gees with ease for all onboard.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Engineering, Reactionary Rockets, and g-LOC

A. Using that reasoning, winding up the rockets to acceleration factor two point nine avoids the penalties of full factor three, that further lies.

B. Taking off from atmospheric gravity wells doesn't appear to be an issue.

C. Heat shielding protects the ship against the heat of re-entry or close proximity to a star. A ship without a functioning gravitic drive that attempts re-entry without heat shielding will burn up.

D. Presumably, the shuttle glide.

E. Doesn't mention non atmospheric reentry.

F. Nor if the rocket activates retro rocket braking.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Engineering, Reactionary Rockets, and g-LOC

G. Militarily, for manned spacecraft, used as afterburners.

H. Likely used in three primary cases.

I. Interception or evasion.

J. Outrunning missiles.

K. Initiative.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Engineering, Reactionary Rockets, and g-LOC

L. You definitely don't want eleven gees and above.

M. Effects, or especially consequences, aren't worth the risk.

N. Nine gees is available at technological level nine.

O. You could try ten point nine gees at technological level ten, before crossing to eleven.

P. But I don't see how that extra gees has a significant effect, except maybe for aces who want cutting edge hardware.