Ship Design: Power plants

[Vormaerin]

But, accumulators are not antimatter or fusion plants. It stores up the energy/particles. So I agree on the batteries.

I'm not even sure why there is this bias against chemical or fission power plants. What problem does it cause that they need to be blocked?

T5 has this whole "overclock" thing. They've decided that power plants sufficient for J drives are too large for putting on a starship, so ship power plants are actually tiny versions that can "overclock" for a few seconds to increase power output by a couple orders of magnitude. Something only fusion & antimatter plants can apparently do.

Which still comes down to a why bother? question. You only need an overclock mechanism if you decide you need to rule out other power sources.

 

[Vormaerin]

On the topic of decentralized power, T5 says:

 

[Condottiere]

The ecks boat's battery borked the overclocking case.

 

[Geir]

Don't look behind the curtain of the jump drive... the Emperor is wearing no pants. (to mangle two or three metaphors)

 

[Condottiere]

We know precisely how many power points are needed to initiate a transition.

 

[Condottiere]

As regards fission and chemical power plants:

1. Define fission.

2. Because, currently, it's prefusion.

3. You have fusion reactors onboard starships, because life support.

4. Neither batteries nor chemical power plant could guarantee sufficient energy over a sennight in the abyss.

 

[WHULorigan]

I'm not even sure why there is this bias against chemical or fission power plants. What problem does it cause that they need to be blocked?

T5 has this whole "overclock" thing. They've decided that power plants sufficient for J drives are too large for putting on a starship, so ship power plants are actually tiny versions that can "overclock" for a few seconds to increase power output by a couple orders of magnitude. Something only fusion & antimatter plants can apparently do.

Which still comes down to a why bother? question. You only need an overclock mechanism if you decide you need to rule out other power sources.

On the topic of decentralized power, T5 says:

View attachment 2110

I think the general idea (metagame) is to ensure that the players still need to stop and refuel regularly. Fusion and Antimatter (and Fission, arguably) could put out continuous power long term for years or decades, if you implement them realistically. That would mean from a setting-design standpoint you would have no choke-points or barriers to interstellar travel. By requiring significant fuel usage (justified by very high-power requirements), you require a periodic stop and refuel cycle, which allows travel impediments, or "astrography" that needs to be overcome.

The dispersed power options above (cold fusion, et al) as well as the power down rules for much lower fuel consumption of main power-plants (see T5.10 Book 2, p.189 (Sidebar - POWER PLANT OPERATIONAL MODES) when not using J-Drives (or M-Drives) are a nod to the high fuel efficiency of those types of plants in reality.

The "overclock" thing was a way to introduce realistic highly fuel-efficient power systems, but yet justify making them "guzzle" fuel at high consumption rates for particular extreme high-power operations like Jump so that there would be impediments to travel (or military invasion).

 

[WHULorigan]

A distributed system is definitely the way to go, though. In T5 one of the things I like is the ability to "gang" drives together to operate collectively. I potentially like the idea that a "D-Drive" (4 EPs) is the same as an A4-Drive (1x4 EPs) or a B2-Drive (2x2 EPs) or a 2A2-Drive (2x (1x2) EPs). It lets you visualize how the drives/engines are actually configured, and potentially lets you distribute hits so that the "port engine is out of action" or "one of the four ganged P-Plants is non-functional", etc.

 

[Arkathan]

As regards fission and chemical power plants:

1. Define fission.

2. Because, currently, it's prefusion.

3. You have fusion reactors onboard starships, because life support.

4. Neither batteries nor chemical power plant could guarantee sufficient energy over a sennight in the abyss.

Fission: The splitting of atoms, thereby producing large amounts of energy and multiple smaller fission product nuclei, and neutrons.
Antonym: Fusion.

 

[Condottiere]

As I recall high school physics, you usually don't use hydrogen to kickstart off a fission reaction.

Nor, that the consumable quantity is, default, one eightieth of a tonne of hydrogen, over four weeks, per power point.

And no radioactive byproducts.

 

[Vormaerin]

I think the general idea (metagame) is to ensure that the players still need to stop and refuel regularly. Fusion and Antimatter (and Fission, arguably) could put out continuous power long term for years or decades, if you implement them realistically. That would mean from a setting-design standpoint you would have no choke-points or barriers to interstellar travel. By requiring significant fuel usage (justified by very high-power requirements), you require a periodic stop and refuel cycle, which allows travel impediments, or "astrography" that needs to be overcome.

The dispersed power options above (cold fusion, et al) as well as the power down rules for much lower fuel consumption of main power-plants (see T5.10 Book 2, p.189 (Sidebar - POWER PLANT OPERATIONAL MODES) when not using J-Drives (or M-Drives) are a nod to the high fuel efficiency of those types of plants in reality.

The "overclock" thing was a way to introduce realistic highly fuel-efficient power systems, but yet justify making them "guzzle" fuel at high consumption rates for particular extreme high-power operations like Jump so that there would be impediments to travel (or military invasion).

The fuel requirements for power plants themselves are so low that it is functionally infinite for game play purposes. The number of times that a month or more of fuel is going to be insufficient is pretty low. A Fat Trader needs 1 dton of Fuel per month to run everything except the jump drive.

People generally won't use chemical power plants because their power output and fuel requirements render them inefficient. Don't really need a special "nope, can't do that" to rule them out. Fission plants, if done properly (like 2300 or T5 vs Mongoose not distinguishing them from fusion plants in fuel usage), would have longer lasting fuel, but still have the lower power output and other issues.

You don't need to rule out chemical and fission power to require check points on FTL travel. You could say the "fuel" is for the jump drive, not the power plant. You can even reconcile it with collectors by having the jump drive "convert" the L-Hydrogen into whatever exotic particles the Collectors gather rather than the power plant going into overdrive. (This obviously conflicts with the hydrogen balloon explanation of jump bubbles used in Mongoose, but then so do collectors in general).

But this age old discussion is probably not worth consuming this topic, which is about how to make distributed power compatible with MgT2e's other systems if you don't want to just handwave it as "how things work under the simplified game mechanics."

 

[Arkathan]

As I recall high school physics, you usually don't use hydrogen to kickstart off a fission reaction.

Nor, that the consumable quantity is, default, one eightieth of a tonne of hydrogen, over four weeks, per power point.

And no radioactive byproducts.

Reread the post I responded to.
Opening: Regarding fission... so, you are talking about fission, not fusion.
1 Define fission. I did that.
2 Because it's currently prefusion
Now, you might want to add context to that line, because you said we AREN'T talking about fusion, but fission and chemical. Thus my clarification after the definition.

And correct, you generally start fission with neutrons of a suitable energy, dependent upon the target isotope... but then you start talking about fusion again, when you said we weren't talking about fusion.

 

[Vormaerin]

Reread the post I responded to.
Opening: Regarding fission... so, you are talking about fission, not fusion.
1 Define fission. I did that.
2 Because it's currently prefusion
Now, you might want to add context to that line, because you said we AREN'T talking about fusion, but fission and chemical. Thus my clarification after the definition.

And correct, you generally start fission with neutrons of a suitable energy, dependent upon the target isotope... but then you start talking about fusion again, when you said we weren't talking about fusion.

He is, in his usual bizarre way, referring to the fact that in Mongoose rules, Fission plants use fuel exactly like Fusion plants. They just have lower power output. Obviously, you don't need a steady supply of hydrogen fuels for fission.

 

[laughdad]

As another example, T5 got away from the "one reactor to power them all" and went to Fusion+. So the big plant(s) powered the drives, spinal weapons, and such while everything else could have "on-mount" power. That greatly simplifies the design process, makes the ship more resilient, but also multiplies the number of fusion bottles by X amount.

 

[Condottiere]

I see my mistake.

I should have added the phrase, in the Mongosian Traveller context.

 

[Arkathan]

I see my mistake.

I should have added the phrase, in the Mongosian Traveller context.

Actually, expanding on the "its" would have helped to clarified things.