TL 14 Collectors In High Guard
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Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
I'd suppose that as long as your larder is full, and maybe have fission reactors, these things are perfect to go where no man wants to go.
I don't think anyone's addressed the nature of these "exotic particles" that are being collected?
In Annic Nova it says it's a "stellar collector". On pg17 it says "The canopy collects radiated stellar power and stores it in the accumulators on the drive deck". So whatever they are seems to originate from stars. All stars, though? In the same amounts? Do red dwarfs emit more or less of these particles than brighter stars? Do red giants emit them? Is it related to the star's luminosity?
Assuming it is related to luminosity then that also means that the closer you are to a star, the more magical star power you'd collect and the faster the capacitors would fill.
In Annic Nova it says it's a "stellar collector". On pg17 it says "The canopy collects radiated stellar power and stores it in the accumulators on the drive deck". So whatever they are seems to originate from stars. All stars, though? In the same amounts? Do red dwarfs emit more or less of these particles than brighter stars? Do red giants emit them? Is it related to the star's luminosity?
Assuming it is related to luminosity then that also means that the closer you are to a star, the more magical star power you'd collect and the faster the capacitors would fill.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
I'm thinking dark matter.
alex_greene said:
If you were too far outsystem you would need much, much larger panels to get any sort of reasonable juice. Solar panels have a practical distance. Even super-panels that convert at 90% or more efficiency have the same issue.
"Sunlight decreases in intensity over distance by a factor of 1/r2, where r is the distance from the Sun," explains Geoff Landis, a scientist at NASA's Glenn Research Center. "This means a 1-meter-square solar array producing 400 watts at a distance of 1 AU would have to be 25 square meters in size out at Jupiter -- and almost 2,000 square meters at Pluto to yield the same power." (Note: An astronomical unit or "AU" is the mean distance between Earth and the Sun. 1 AU equals 150 million kilometers.).
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2002/08jan_sunshine/
http:Reynard said:
The X-boat network has an abundance of ships. Upon arrival it either is picked up and taken somewhere to transmit the data, or it sits and transmits it data. You could do the pony express thing where the arriving ship uploads its data to the waiting X-Boat, which is already fully charged and it jumps while the other one is serviced and starts its charging cycle.
AnotherDilbert
Emperor Mongoose
Allowing collectors will totally change the economics of high jump ships. A jump-6 x-boat will become much cheaper. All commercial high-jump ships would go for collectors. J-6 freighters would suddenly be very viable.
We could even play games with breakaway hulls so an x-boat consists of a personnel section and an engine section, so that instead of refuelling the x-boat we simply switch engine section to a recharged one and leave the depleted engine section to recharge while the personnel pod jumps away.
We could even play games with breakaway hulls so an x-boat consists of a personnel section and an engine section, so that instead of refuelling the x-boat we simply switch engine section to a recharged one and leave the depleted engine section to recharge while the personnel pod jumps away.
alex_greene
Guest
You can put the ship at the Greek or Trojan points in the mainworld's orbit. That ought to be good enough. Stealth coating and a low profile would mean it could be a while before anybody wonders where all these ships are getting their supplies from.phavoc said:
PsiTraveller
Cosmic Mongoose
Where the Collectors can be recharged is an important point to figure out. If they are stellar based only, then does the type of star the Collector ship is close to important? Does one type of star give more or less power?
What about parsecs without a star? If you jump into empty space and set up the Collector will you accumulate the exotic particles? If so, this changes places like the Great Rift and the defended routes across the gap. If a Collector will work in empty space you could develop a straight line route across anywhere. It may take 2 weeks per jump cycle but who cares? No more meandering routes around poorly spaced Mains, no Rifts causing problems. Just a slow steady pace of Collector ships shuttling people and goods across space.
It would change a lot of things for trade and military operations.
What about parsecs without a star? If you jump into empty space and set up the Collector will you accumulate the exotic particles? If so, this changes places like the Great Rift and the defended routes across the gap. If a Collector will work in empty space you could develop a straight line route across anywhere. It may take 2 weeks per jump cycle but who cares? No more meandering routes around poorly spaced Mains, no Rifts causing problems. Just a slow steady pace of Collector ships shuttling people and goods across space.
It would change a lot of things for trade and military operations.
alex_greene
Guest
And what if it turns out that the way things have been is actually deliberate - and that people have been doing things in the traditional way, not because there isn't any better way, but because people have deliberately suppressing more advanced tech all this time?AnotherDilbert said:
Think of how hard it is nowadays to get governments to accept solar, when the big fuel cartels are lobbying gullible politicians to jump back to bed with oil and coal power plant production. Big Hydrogen really doesn't like losing out on that Cr. 500 per ton steady income, not when it turns out that all that ships need is to harvest those exotic particles, which are concentrated during the act of refinement of the hydrogen.
Condottiere said:
Dark matter passes through all matter. Plus, not a lot of dark matter in a stellar system (e.g. http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2013/07/03/does-dark-matter-affect-the-motion-of-the-solar-system/ )
And it can't be normal light because because then the collector would just be a solar panel.
So... it's magical space particles produced by stars, that nobody's ever noticed before and yet are strangely good at charging up jump drives. (if you're getting tens or hundreds of megawatts from it to charge a jump drive over a week then it must be good!).
Either way, there should be more of these particles closer to the star than further (and maybe even a limit beyond which a Collector can't effectively collect enough of them to operate).
PsiTraveller said:
Which is why I was so intent on finding out whether this is an official part of the 3I now, because it significantly changes a hell of a lot of things about the setting that have been described in previous editions. I'm not sure if anyone authoritative and in a position to know the truth has answered that question here.
According to MGT2 HG2 - collectors are not* 3I
*Not 3i means either doesn't exist, unique or rare. Feel free to explain the annic Nova any way you folks feel like it.
According to T5 - collectors exist and can power up to jump-2 drives (at TL15). I'm not sure how to explain in-universe OTU impact.
*Not 3i means either doesn't exist, unique or rare. Feel free to explain the annic Nova any way you folks feel like it.
According to T5 - collectors exist and can power up to jump-2 drives (at TL15). I'm not sure how to explain in-universe OTU impact.
PsiTraveller
Cosmic Mongoose
Not sure what they can say. Annic Nova presented tech in 1980 that could change how things work in a Jump Drive based society. Assuming the ship was taken to a TL 15 base and reverse engineered a hydrogen free movement system could be discovered. It all depends on what a GM was going to allow to happen to the tech once discovered.
An example of a Collector goes back to 1979. The mongoose version is a more robust model, but a Collector has been in the game for a long time. If you don't want to use it, don't.
I do not have T5, but will take the J2 Tl 15 limitation. That changes the J3 design I did yesterday. A J2 still allows a good trade route across a rift as long as particles can be collected out in the Deep.
An example of a Collector goes back to 1979. The mongoose version is a more robust model, but a Collector has been in the game for a long time. If you don't want to use it, don't.
I do not have T5, but will take the J2 Tl 15 limitation. That changes the J3 design I did yesterday. A J2 still allows a good trade route across a rift as long as particles can be collected out in the Deep.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Sigtrygg
Emperor Mongoose
The Annic Nova adventure occurs in 1105. Elsewhere in 1105 setting canon drop tanks are only just being built for civilian use in the Spinward Marches - despite them originally being a TL12 technology the Imperial core worlds have only been using drop tanks on civilian vessels for couple of decades. Note the current rules just say you can just build drop tanks.
The Annic Nova and other ships like it are encountered in the Spinward Marches and the Imperium takes a look at the TL14 technology that they failed to invent due to the widespread hydrogen fuel infrastructure and efficiency.
Notice that this is setting detail, not rules. Just because something is TL9 doesn't mean all TL9 cultures discover it.
How long to reverse engineer - months, a year?
How long before the technology enters a military testing program, how long to draw conclusions, how long to build prototype ships?
When do you declassify the technology for civilian use?
A collector takes a week to charge (note that in the original adventure it is 1d6 weeks) during which the ship can do nothing else. So you now need highports or interface craft for merchants where none were needed before. Or the ship can land, offload cargo, leave crew dirtside to look for passengers and cargo, while the ship takes off and spends a week in space to recharge, then land to pick up cargo and crew - how many extra days are you adding to the jump cycle and how many trips per year are you losing? Who is goung to build the new infrastructure?
Here is the interesting thing - it is up to you how you would want collector technology to develop in your 3I. Not that it matters much because Strephon is still going to be assassinated, Virus will be released and the Empress Wave is on its way - that is according to the OTU
The Annic Nova and other ships like it are encountered in the Spinward Marches and the Imperium takes a look at the TL14 technology that they failed to invent due to the widespread hydrogen fuel infrastructure and efficiency.
Notice that this is setting detail, not rules. Just because something is TL9 doesn't mean all TL9 cultures discover it.
How long to reverse engineer - months, a year?
How long before the technology enters a military testing program, how long to draw conclusions, how long to build prototype ships?
When do you declassify the technology for civilian use?
A collector takes a week to charge (note that in the original adventure it is 1d6 weeks) during which the ship can do nothing else. So you now need highports or interface craft for merchants where none were needed before. Or the ship can land, offload cargo, leave crew dirtside to look for passengers and cargo, while the ship takes off and spends a week in space to recharge, then land to pick up cargo and crew - how many extra days are you adding to the jump cycle and how many trips per year are you losing? Who is goung to build the new infrastructure?
Here is the interesting thing - it is up to you how you would want collector technology to develop in your 3I. Not that it matters much because Strephon is still going to be assassinated, Virus will be released and the Empress Wave is on its way - that is according to the OTU
fusor said:
Exactly this came up during the playtest period and no definitive answer was given.
Some of us put forward the idea of different stars offering slower/faster charge times to ballance collectors (myself included) The longest charge time occuring in Parsecs where there is no star to speak of.
Sigtrygg
Emperor Mongoose
You printed the bloody adventure in Signs and Portents and it clearly takes place in the 3I. It flat out states it does in the adventure.Nerhesi said:
And once again - some of the technology in the HIgh Technology chapter is baseline for the 3I setting (it is even used in the ships later in the book), while some of the weapons in the basic construction section are not. This was mentioned during the playtest and ignored.
PsiTraveller
Cosmic Mongoose
I want to know if a capacitor can be made modular and put into a different ship? stored? Have a central base with a big collector set up that fills X number of tons of capacitor per week. This capacitor is then slapped into the next ship leaving and off it goes. This answers the X-boat system problem. Have a central base that has 14 Capacitors on hand. 2 Drained capacitors are added every day and 2 charged Capacitors are removed every day. As ships come in they get the charged ones and off they go.
If particles are not collectible in the void, can you charge two up and Jump in the empty system? sort of like taking along extra fuel?
I bet Collector ships have tinkerbell artwork or some other sparkly logo. )Oh god, the ships are powered by Vampires in sunlight!
If particles are not collectible in the void, can you charge two up and Jump in the empty system? sort of like taking along extra fuel?
I bet Collector ships have tinkerbell artwork or some other sparkly logo. )Oh god, the ships are powered by Vampires in sunlight!
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Commanded by Captain Hook.
