SP93 Annic Nova Power plant?

[dalamar981]

Energy Accumulator: Stellar Collector: Where did this power plant come from? It has stats (47 tons), (120 Mcr.), (60 days of end), and can power both jump drives (No fuel needed!!!)

It is close to a "Q" P-Plant (46 tons), (120 Mcr.)

If this is some new alternate P-Plant that the author came up with, I think a side bar with full rules for said drive would be cool, like the alt drives in the main book.

 

[zero]

Sounds like a true beast!

Probably wouldnt use it in my games, but nice to see that even in TL 16 Traveller tech is still developing :lol:

 

[SSWarlock]

If this is some new alternate P-Plant that the author came up with...

It is. The original ship is from an adventure in the very first Journal of the Travellers' Aid Society publication for CT 'way back in 1979. The author of the original CT adventure was none other than Marc Miller himself.

 

[hdan]

Annic Nova is a classic Traveller riddle - it breaks just about all the design rules with no justification or way of adapting the technology. Especially the jump drive - there's no way it can work in the MgT "jump bubble" system without a significant amount of hand waving.

I think the best plan is to chalk the whole ship up to "alien stuff we'll never really understand" and treat it as a priceless artifact. Players will be unable to properly service it, and will have to spend TONS of money trying to keep it flying.

I personally would treat the Annic Nova like a smaller version of the "Destiny" from Stargate:Universe. Players will be able to make makeshift repairs to most systems and will eventually gain some control over the ship, but it's never going to be "just a funny looking free trader".

 

[dalamar981]

here is my issue with this, I like the Idea but we don't even know what the tech level of this drive is. here is all the info from the article.

"Fuel, Refuel and Power.
The canopy collects radiated stellar power and
stores it in the accumulators on the drive deck.
The only way to extend the canopy is with
the controls on the drive deck or the control
panel in the observation dome. It cannot be
controlled from the bridge.
The accumulators can store enough energy
to power each jump drive once, as well as
maintain internal life support under normal
conditions.
Duration of internal power: 60 days under
ordinary load.
Required recharge time: One to six weeks
(1d6), depending on the distance from,
and spectral type of, the star serving as the
radiation source."

here are the unanswered questions:

What is the power storage to consumption ratio with different class jump drives? only one Jump drive.

can it power Maneuver drives?

How can you use this in a game without knowing the distance to sun variable it talks about, and how the star type affects the recharge time?

 

[SSWarlock]

...here are the unanswered questions:

What is the power storage to consumption ratio with different class jump drives? only one Jump drive.

can it power Maneuver drives?

How can you use this in a game without knowing the distance to sun variable it talks about, and how the star type affects the recharge time?

Heh. Welcome to the joys of Classic Traveller in 1979. Which is when I was asked similar questions by my players.

At the time, I ruled that only one jump can be performed (using either jump drive) before the accumulators needed to be recharged for another jump. After each jump, there's enough power for 6 weeks of normal ship operations. And retrofitting a standard M-drive would not only be extremely expensive since the ship was never designed structurally to support it but doing so would also destroy its value as a novelty.

As for the problem of not knowing the star type or distance from it, I always secretly rolled the recharge rate myself during the players' jump and fudged the star type and distance to something that made some sense. Keep in mind that back in '79, owning personal computers were unheard of for most people in high school or even college. And stellar data was only available from a something called a "book" stored on a shelf in a place called a "library" so most people just didn't know any better or really care to. :wink:

My players ended up selling the ship as fast as they could because the horrendously variable recharge time made it impossible for them to run it as a profitable free trader.

 

[rust]

We did not even get to selling it, some Imperial paper pusher in a navy
uniform told us that the ship was confiscated and that we had to forget
that it ever existed. When we protested, the referee pulled out the Prison
Planet adventure ... :evil:

 

[SSWarlock]

We did not even get to selling it, some Imperial paper pusher in a navy
uniform told us that the ship was confiscated and that we had to forget
that it ever existed. When we protested, the referee pulled out the Prison
Planet adventure ... :evil:

I thought about doing something similar at the time (the sucker is worth quite a bit of credits) but the adventure ended up killing half the party, thanks to some really bad disease effect rolls. I didn't have the heart to make it worse and it turned into something of a Monty Hall for the survivors.

 

[middenface]

Guilty as charged...

Making the specs for that ship gave me a few nightmares... it was fun to do though. I had a brief of making it fit the rules and in doing so I created the plans to fit correctly (or at least close enough on both counts)

I think settled on making the 'energy accumulator' about the same weight of two power plants that will give you jump-2 and jump-3 respectively (assume the weight includes capacitors etc and other gubbins)

The weight of the collector is based on a solar panel for the weight of the accumulator.. At least that is what I think I did, not got my notes to hand and is was awhile ago..

As for TL, there is none, unless you work one from the highest jump, I've assumed its a strange possibly experimental one off design from who knows where. In the end its what you make it, its an enigma..... You can't pop over to your average ship yard and say 'Hey build me that...' its non standard and all that.

I'll be popping some shiney images of it on the blog when I get a moment. The collector was a bugger to model...

 

[BP]

Nice article - especially like Ian's deckplans!

A while back Matt was looking for MgT specs for the ship and I came up with the following based on the deckplans (I.e counting squares and estimating cylindrical volumes, etc.):

There are some nice renderings on the web of this ship... Sean Kennedy's is nice, but I could only find this shot: http://www.seansgallery.com/cgi-bin/showpicture.cgi?picture=annic3b&menu=43

 

[middenface]

Thanks. Heres a nice render...

 

[middenface]

 

[FreeTrav]

Middenface, please please PLEASE do me the favor of recasting one of those to fit USLetter/ISO-A4; I can always use covers for Freelance Traveller, and either of those would be a stunner...

 

[SSWarlock]

Gorgeous work!

 

[Chronus]

My players ended up selling the ship as fast as they could because the horrendously variable recharge time made it impossible for them to run it as a profitable free trader.

Was it because of this?

At the time, I ruled that only one jump can be performed (using either jump drive) before the accumulators needed to be recharged for another jump.

I never tried, but often wondered, if the Annic Nova could make a profit as the cargo ship it was intended. Free fuel is cool and all that but . . . the time consumption! Not only do you have to wait for recharge, you have to wait for in-system travel as well since you're maneuver drives were just a couple of pinnaces.

And, unless you drove and docked the whole silly thing to a high-port, you had to load/unload your cargo with the pitiful cargo space supplied by the one pinnace.

Taking away a jump then is obviously the work of a sadistic GM. ;-)

If I were the ship's owner, I'd convert all that cargo space into staterooms and transport people. The MGT rules, unlike CT, takes into consideration a higher demand for jump distance . . . increasing the likelihood of profit for the ship.

 

[BP]

Selling at least one of the pinnaces would help offset an M-Drive upgrade

 

[Egil Skallagrimsson]

Just had a read through the Annic Nova adventure in S&P.

As I am not encumbered by rosy tints caused by playing the first version, it does seem a rather limited adventure, "so, you wander around this abandoned vessel, if you were stupid enough to take off your vacc suit before you vented the germs out by opening the ship to vaccuum, well, your lovingly created character is probably going to die quickly, otherwise nothing happens"

can I suggest the following...
1. The computer is more capable than expected, closes the doors and seals the characters in. As they attempt to cut their way to the the computer TL16 combat drones appear.
2. The computer initiates jump. Where to?
3. Having checked the ship, and possibly been infected, the IN conficates the "alien artefact" and imprisons the character pending "cleansing"
4. The dead are not humans, but an unknown race of aliens.
5. The dead aliens have transferred their psions beings into a Psionic Core deep in the accumalators. They want to gain possession of the bodies of the adventurers.
6. as 4, but as the PCs complete their investigation, the Annic Nova's mothership emerges. It is 50,000t, heavily armed, and angrily demands immediate answers as to why the occupants of their scout ship are dead. Does anybody speak high "Zaswertylljcz" as well as understanding their protocols?

Egil

 

[alex_greene]

Or you could read something I submitted a few months back to S&P, but which I doubt they'd publish now they've rebooted Annic Nova instead (so I've sent mine up to Docstoc and I'll have to think of something else for S&P when it returns next year):-

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/80900699/Tales-of-The-Black-Freighter-(without-illustrations)

:roll: Oh, it won't link properly. Copypasta the URL.

 

[alex_greene]

And sorry to Mongoose Nick. If this thing ever got published in S&P it would only have drawn comparisons with Annic Nova, and I could not compete with an original penned by MWM himself.

 

[middenface]

Middenface, please please PLEASE do me the favor of recasting one of those to fit USLetter/ISO-A4; I can always use covers for Freelance Traveller, and either of those would be a stunner...

OK then... should be ok, on its way...