TL 14 - Collectors

[PsiTraveller]

Do Collectors remove the ned for Jump Fuel?

a 200 Ton ship with Jump 4 engines would normally need 10% of total tonnage multiplied by the Jump Number: 200 ton ship Jump 4 would need 80 tons of fuel.

Collector would need 1% of tonnage times Jump Number (2 time 4 is 8 tons), plus 5 tons for a total of 13 tons of Collector tonnage? Total Cost is 6.5 million.

Usable once a week, so no fast cycling Jumping, but that changes a lot of Traveller math in terms of trade and military considerations.

If this is correct that 200 ton ship could have 60 tons of extra cargo space at 7000 a ton freight income. That is 420,000 Cr extra income twice a month. The tech pays for itself in less than a year.

Am I reading that right?

 

[Nerhesi]

I had that same concern about collectors. It has a huge effect on the universe makeup/history/lore etc.. due to lack of fuel-space. Everything from merchant ships, to fleets would be changing...

Did this exist in previous OTU?

 

[hdan]

Collectors seem to be an adaptation of the (very old) "Annic Nova" adventure ship's fuel system.

 

[Nerhesi]

Collectors seem to be an adaptation of the (very old) "Annic Nova" adventure ship's fuel system.

Thats where I saw it! Yup - but that was a weird/one-time artefact... not an easily manufactured standard fitting - which I'm sure is our cause for concern

 

[FallingPhoenix]

What if a stipulation was made that the "normal space travel" required was of sufficient velocity that the ship has to basically fly around at high speed for a week, thus disallowing routine operations during recharge time. This would mean it took effectively two weeks per jump instead of one when traveling and may offset the lack of fuel need.

Of course, then you'd probably have a ton of commercial jump carriers that dump off the cargo haulers while they flit around the system at high speed for a week before meeting back up with the cargo haulers for the jump out...

 

[wbnc]

What if a stipulation was made that the "normal space travel" required was of sufficient velocity that the ship has to basically fly around at high speed for a week, thus disallowing routine operations during recharge time. This would mean it took effectively two weeks per jump instead of one when traveling and may offset the lack of fuel need.

Of course, then you'd probably have a ton of commercial jump carriers that dump off the cargo haulers while they flit around the system at high speed for a week before meeting back up with the cargo haulers for the jump out...

not a bad idea for a specialized vessel .... using a breakaway hull with collectors built into one section and the other having the cargo bays....oh sorry thinking out loud. The restriction that the ship must cruise at say thrust one, or better during collection seems like a good idea.

 

[Nerhesi]

Yeah - still not seeing any reason not to immediately move all of my commercial and military ships to use collectors immediately.

With some fast-response exceptions.. the fact I can suddenly use 20-60% of dtonnage for purposes other than fuel, is probably the biggest breakthrough in technology - EVER. Forget the discovery of meson weapons.

We literally have to find a reason to make collectors "a bad choice in almost every circumstance" or else they will become the best choice in every circumstance. They're just THAT good.

 

[PsiTraveller]

Collectors and Advanced Talent Psionics. Making Hydrogen obsolete one ship at a time.

A collector unit, even with a TL 12 quadruple cost and disadvantages still allows for a huge impact on logistics. The Fuel dump in the Sindal Sector is a good example of this. With Collectors a ship just keeps jumping. Stock up on food and maintenance parts for the week in the Void but the ship carries on.

Even a tanker ship with a Collector can resupply the fuel dump more efficiently, no fuel lost to jumping the ship in and out.

 

[Belisknar]

If we want to make them less appealing, put the same or similar restrictions on them as the Accumulators from the Annic Nova.

They required a Star in order to collect the power for Jumps (so no void charging) and depending on the type of star it could take up to 6 weeks for a full charge.

 

[Nerhesi]

If we want to make them less appealing, put the same or similar restrictions on them as the Accumulators from the Annic Nova.

They required a Star in order to collect the power for Jumps (so no void charging) and depending on the type of star it could take up to 6 weeks for a full charge.

That is along the lines of balanced.

Basically - worse off than Fuel-based jumping in almost everyway except under rare scenarios A, b and C. Otherwise, they just become the norm

 

[Belisknar]

Other ideas to limit them without completely nerfing them.

*Reduce the Thrust of a ship by a degree when Collectors are deployed.

*DM+1 For attackers to hit a ship with Collectors deployed.
(This one came to mind because of the increased cargo space that would be available thanks to the collectors. A savvy pirate will know that a ship with collectors will have a much bigger hold and therefor is a tastier target.)



Now... A couple of questions...

* How long can Collectors hold a charge?

If I've got 2 Jump drives on board (a J2 and a J4) and the necessary accumulators to power them. So I'm saying 2 independent drives each with independent collectors. If I spend the time to fully charge both accumulators and use the J4. Will the J2 accumulators hold their charge indefinitely?

*Does it need to be a continuous charge cycle?

Could I spend 4 days charging, a week doing something else and then come back to do the final 3 days of charging?

*Can Collectors be used along side Hydrogen?

This one is the most likely of scenario I can see my group trying to figure into.

A ship with collectors for normal opperation and an emergency fuel reserve. Enough for a Jump 1 most likely.

*Finally the least necessary of question... What kind of Jump Bubble is a Collector based ship using?

It's obviously not Hydrogen like we've been lead to believe is how jump travel works for Mongoose editions. I know there is other explanations in older editions but I haven't looked too deeply into that lore yet and well... If it's going to be in this edition it should be explained... at least in passing.

 

[Reynard]

The fact that Collectors take a week to charge compared to days or hours for fuels skimming seems like a big limitation plus you can't recharge at a station. Add the fact you still need to gather or buy power plant fuel. And the Collector excludes using hydrogen fuel because it uses a whole other mechanism to deliver to the jump drive. Not such a game changer.

What the collector is is something that was part of Traveller technology but not exploited. It is an alternate to the jump fuel mechanic but still within the realm of the standard Traveller universe as opposed to the alterative warp drive. I liken this to having solar sails available as well as maneuver drives. The new High Guard is giving variety without greatly disturbing continuity.

 

[Nerhesi]

I believe this greatly disturbing continuity.

Players will also use that week train/educate themselves.

NPCs will benefit massively from the increase in space.

Remember, cargo doesn't move any slower once you start the chain - doesn't matter if they take a week rather than 2-4 days to get the fuel, once you have the line going, there is no delay.

The drawback has to be so significant/severe that no free trader, no corporation, no military, wants to make use of this except for the smallest, most niche, of needs.

Otherwise, you may as well start changing free traders, destroyers and the like

 

[hdan]

The original ship to have this collector system (the ANN1C N0VA) was fitted with two ship's boats (which also served as its m-drives), and presumably the crew would leave the ship charging in orbit while they used the boats to conduct their business, whatever that was.

 

[phavoc]

So has the underlying jump concept changed again? MGT changed lanthanum jump grids to hydrogen-infused jump bubbles. So your hydrogen fuel was not actually consumed for power like previous versions, but pumped out as exotic particles.

So either the hydrogen is still required to perform the same function (i.e. the jump bubble) or there is now another method of entering jump space with collectors. Or are collectors now manufacturing hydrogen on their own from the ether?

I haven't gotten to this in the book yet... so basing my questions on what's been posted in-thread.

 

[Reynard]

It used to be black globes shunted absorbed energy to capacitors exclusively for use in a jump. Similar technology? "Exotic particles' are mention as the collected material and they may be the alternate bubble material too.

It's a high tech level (TL 14) fuel source collector with less volume that equivalent hydrogen fuel plus no need for fuel processors. There should be, as many campaigns suggest, difficultly finding parts and repairs on lower tech worlds. It has a high up front cost compared to a fuel tank at a half a million per ton of collector. Will that deter people with lower tech ships from upgrading? I'm assuming power transfer by either collector or power plant to the jump drive are comparable.

Fuel is always free but always takes a week to gather in flight while a standard ship can gather fuel from water or gas giants in 1D6 hours or can refuel at a starport quickly at a cost. The collector energy cannot be used in the power plant.

Here's a disadvantage. The original Annic Nova collector is a 1km diameter frame of absorbent film that take 1 hour to deploy and automatically folds back in when charged, computer task to fold early. That will make the ship highly vulnerable. The collector should be very easily targetable and damage and/or destruction before one week means either no or only partial jump capacity. I would say the vast majority of ships don't want to be that kind of vulnerable!

To add a bit more salt in the wound, it would not be available in OTU until at least 1103 when the Annic Nova was discovered then would need to be back engineered.

So yeah, not perfect. Still cool.

 

[phavoc]

It used to be black globes shunted absorbed energy to capacitors exclusively for use in a jump. Similar technology? "Exotic particles' are mention as the collected material and they may be the alternate bubble material too.

Yes. Previous to MGT the lanthanum jump grid was powered by the ships powerplant rapidly burning through the jump fuel to power up the jump drive. Black globes had power capacitors that could shunt the power into the jump drive, or any other system that used power for that matter (much like the Andromedan power absorbers from SFB)

It's a high tech level (TL 14) fuel source collector with less volume that equivalent hydrogen fuel plus no need for fuel processors. There should be, as many campaigns suggest, difficultly finding parts and repairs on lower tech worlds. It has a high up front cost compared to a fuel tank at a half a million per ton of collector. Will that deter people with lower tech ships from upgrading? I'm assuming power transfer by either collector or power plant to the jump drive are comparable.

So the question is does the collector gather interstellar hydrogen, or is it creating the hydrogen from nothing? I wouldn't think there would be enough free hydrogen floating around to fill a ship's fuel tank.

 

[Reynard]

From the section on the collectors, "These are accumulators, sweeping up exotic particles captured by a canopy." No, it is not hydrogen.

 

[Belisknar]

The Collector excludes using hydrogen fuel because it uses a whole other mechanism to deliver to the jump drive. Not such a game changer.

Who says there can't be two mechanisms on the drive to allow the use of both?

The rules do not say that they can't be used together, which is why I asked that exact question above.

 

[Reynard]

Fair enough then. Connections to the jump for either unit are universal. Makes life simpler.