ProfGrizzlyJon
Cosmic Mongoose
Is there any reason that a ship cannot have multiple power plants? I could not find rules to the contrary
Ship Design: Power plants
- Thread starter ProfGrizzlyJon
- Start date
AndrewW
Emperor Mongoose
There are rules for an emergency power plant.
There is nothing that prevents a ship from installing more then one power plant.
Limpin Legin
Cosmic Mongoose
Just looking at the Core Rules, it does not explicitly say you cannot order the same item twice.
However, STEP 3: INSTALL POWER PLANT instructions grammatically only talk about a single power plant, and fails to communicate plurality as being a viable option.
Also, STEP 9: INSTALL OPTIONAL ITEMS does not specify additional power plants being available.
Technical issues might depend on what you envisage by "multiple power plants." Like, do you mean
Providing switching between power sources, and routing alternative transmission paths to the same power sinks, could be an issue. IDK the answer, as the challenges presented by the drive technology is completely fictional.
However, STEP 3: INSTALL POWER PLANT instructions grammatically only talk about a single power plant, and fails to communicate plurality as being a viable option.
Also, STEP 9: INSTALL OPTIONAL ITEMS does not specify additional power plants being available.
Technical issues might depend on what you envisage by "multiple power plants." Like, do you mean
i) multiple sub-power plants, adding together to form one power plant (like one sub-station for jump drive, one sub-station for manoeuvre drives, and another one for operational power),
ii) an alternative power source (like battery and mains operational in elec. circuits), or
iii) a redundant/duplicate supply that can be switched on during emergencies?
Providing switching between power sources, and routing alternative transmission paths to the same power sinks, could be an issue. IDK the answer, as the challenges presented by the drive technology is completely fictional.
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ProfGrizzlyJon
Cosmic Mongoose
My intent is to have a decentralized power infrastructure; with a power plant for each component and battery packs that are filled by the ones not in continual use.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
None.
Whether they are all on the same power grid is a different issue.
Whether they are all on the same power grid is a different issue.
Geir
Emperor Mongoose
Step 6 is called "Install Computer" but you can do two of them. Off the top of my head, The Deepnight Revelation had power plants in various pods, and a breakaway hull ship has to have a separate power plant for each section or it wouldn't fly (so to speak). I think even if it's just listed a a single bunch of tons, there's no reason what that has to be in a monolithic power block.
There are a couple of ships with second jump drives in High Guard (but Step 2 is entitled "Install Drives" so that provides no grammatical guidance).
There are a couple of ships with second jump drives in High Guard (but Step 2 is entitled "Install Drives" so that provides no grammatical guidance).
AnotherDilbert
Emperor Mongoose
You can have as many power plants as you want, but they are still one power system when damaged or malfunctioning.
I assume you can have duplicated separate power systems, that can take over if the primary is damaged, like previous editions.
I assume you can have duplicated separate power systems, that can take over if the primary is damaged, like previous editions.
CordwainerFish
Emperor Mongoose
Surely the Power Plant line in a ship's consist represents the total of all its power production, which need not all come from the same firebottle. (It may even omit the in situ backup reactors in 100% availability systems like the corpsicle berths.)
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
While the sections are together, drives, power plants and weapons can all be combined when calculating performance.
Which should resolve all engineering duplication question(s).
Which should resolve all engineering duplication question(s).
Limpin Legin
Cosmic Mongoose
That is not necessarily true if the intention is to build in a distributed power structure. Knock out part of a distributed network, and the rest of the network should still continue to function.
Could be that would be more complex and need more staff Engineers or drones to maintain the infrastructure. Shutting down part of the system to free up more power for elsewhere would unlikely work in that configuration?
I think FF&S has options for that. But, in general, Traveller does not have a sufficiently granular combat system to handle it. The critical hits system degrades functionality in increments (unless you get a really severe crit). This is generally understood to be partial systems failure from specific sub systems of the power plant being damaged.
If you want to have multiple power plants, then you probably need to change the crit system so lesser crits destroy/disable individual units instead of degrade the whole system.
If you want to have multiple power plants, then you probably need to change the crit system so lesser crits destroy/disable individual units instead of degrade the whole system.
AnotherDilbert
Emperor Mongoose
And here is the real answer:
As long as combat damage and malfunction rules still works as usual, you can write whatever fluff text or deck plans you like.
Or you just house-rule whatever you want, of course.
MgT1 Trillion Credit Squadron had this to say:
A back-up system is a complete separate system.
A highly simplified system, and it has worked well enough for decades...
AnotherDilbert
Emperor Mongoose
Example, the Gazelle (HG'22, p181-182):
One set of drives.
Drawn as two sets of drives, no problem.
Still works as one set of PP and M-drive for damage purposes.
One set of drives.
Drawn as two sets of drives, no problem.
Still works as one set of PP and M-drive for damage purposes.
AnotherDilbert
Emperor Mongoose
Example, the Leviathan (HG'22, pp217):
Backup drives, but not PP.
Backup drives, but not PP.
ProfGrizzlyJon
Cosmic Mongoose
My intent was to attach the power plant to the component, so it is damaged by critical hits at the same time
Limpin Legin
Cosmic Mongoose
Yes, well, be careful about your reasoning. There is the general (or core rulebook) case, FF&S case, TCS case and HG case - each could have it's own "real answer" that is different to each other. I only had evidence for core rulebook, then rest is my own real world engineering acumen applied to science fiction concepts. Yes, I could use that for local house-rules, although I'd prefer to see some recognition reflected in the published Traveller system. Question of this thread asks "Is there ANY reason ..." suggesting to me that non-rulebook reasons might also be useful to discuss, where explicit rules are apparently absent.
A military system is more likely to have redundancy/duplicity backup provisioning compared to a commercial equivalent, simply because of the cost vs risks ratios. However, this evidence that you have brought to attention doesn't seem to have explored a distributed power system, as mooted in this thread. So maybe we are wrong for the suggestions.
Thanks for your diligence in researching this! However, this evidence of "two sets of drives" is not the same as a distributed system, although both imply "more than one," they operate in different ways. The "two sets of drives", as per your example, only works as a monolithic device.
This is typical of rocket engines, where two, three or four thrusters are provided because a single thruster is not powerful enough to provide enough thrust, without risk of cracking/exploding it. Several thrusters bundled together would produce a controlled effect that is the equivalent of one gigantic thruster, without incurring the instability risk.
The question at that point is what is the effect of a crit to the power plant? Essentially, what this seems likely to result in that whatever draws from the main power plant (the drives? Life support?) is going to take 100% of the impact of a PP hit. Or PP is not a thing that can get crits because it isn't a discrete system at all and something needs to replace that on the chart.
Arkathan
Emperor Mongoose
While that would be an easy house rule, consider that unless you overpower the component scale power plant, one critical hit will cause it to stop powering a system, while that same hit only degrades the system system being powered.
You will need 110% component power plant rating for a weapon, since a level one critical reduces power by 10%. You don't need more than that, because the second critical knocks out the weapon.
Now, for drives, the third hit reduces power output by 70%. Plan accordingly.
Also consider that vibrational shock can cause a power generator to fail. So even though you are spreading out the system, a power plant hit is still going to knock out a percentage of your generation.
You can probably achieve the same results by overpowering, armoring and hardening your power plant, while adding an emergency backup and stacked ease of repair mods, and then using fluff text to describe it as a distributed network.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
1. Old gangster Traveller implied monolithic shipboard components.
2. Sometimes, deckplans contradicted this.
3. Breakaway hull option clearly allows modulization of engineering components, at no penalty, with one obvious exception.
4. Every separate module of a jump drive, requires a five tonne overhead.
5. If there is a further cost to separate modules, whether in tonnage or (mega)starbux, it is unknown.
6. With podularization, the answer seems no.
2. Sometimes, deckplans contradicted this.
3. Breakaway hull option clearly allows modulization of engineering components, at no penalty, with one obvious exception.
4. Every separate module of a jump drive, requires a five tonne overhead.
5. If there is a further cost to separate modules, whether in tonnage or (mega)starbux, it is unknown.
6. With podularization, the answer seems no.