Yes, tordial based (Tokamak) fusion reactor designs, like those I based my concept of Traveller PPs on decades ago, are still a viable research area and anticipated candidates for the realization of actual fusion based power plants. Likewise, there are plenty of other designs that remain contenders - such as the Spheromak (another cool name - LLNL or LANL, IIRC?) and Dr. Bussard's designs* (based on much older designs he didn't invent just attempted refinements). With popular media, especially regards the WWW, there is a lot of misleading (and downright bogus) information on technical subjects of this nature - then throw in the egos and grandstanding present when it comes to the particular topic of energy production and good info sources can be hard to come by.
Sadly, I've been a fan following the research over the years, but this is one area of (power industry) research I've had no professional exposure to (collaborated with two who did contract work for NIF, but our conversations centered around optics and lasers).
I do look forward to the days of fusion based power plants - but realistically, better power distribution could eliminate much of the need. (Nuclear fusion reactors don't promise 'clean' energy - just cleaner than fission - and then not so much if the fuel comes from fission reactors as many research designs have required.) If we could more efficiently (and politically) distribute
and use the largely wasted output capacity of the world's hydro-electric plants much of today's world demand could be met.
Back on topic...
The crux of my original post was simply that the Traveller power plant (and drives)
could, overall, be comparable or even less dense than water if its largest volume is simply a vacuum chamber (and work space is accounted for). IMTU, most of my drives are 'empty space' or are of very low density, with the exception of heavy metal allows (with Tantalum and Molydenum IIRC). It's an option - nothing more.
IMTU, filling fuel tanks worked for ballast - but then I wasn't worried about maneuvering on water or submerging. Adding hydrojets would definitely make this more of a concern.
So
rust - I recall you posting about water based personal weapons - have you given any thought to ship based ones? Anti-personnel/fauna and anti-ship?
*Ironically, last summer, I remarked to my dad that his latest vacuum chamber (used mostly for testing space-bound instruments for NASA and ESA projects), with its large, hand wound, squarish shielding coils (particular to that chamber), looked suspiciously like Bussard's last described plan for a Polywell reactor 8)
