Traveller Manufacturing Rules

[Sigtrygg]

Maybe but the definition of RU has proven to be (to me) non-intuitive; and very people are familiar with the term. TeraCreds probably works just as well. Honestly, I think the RU was an early attempt to get away from explicitly defined units -- as such, maybe it needs to go.

As soon as you try to define an economy in credits you are making ridiculous amounts of work for yourself, there are far too many factors to take into account such that any atempt requires such a simplification the RU is a blessing.

I disagree; since we do not know how much energy is requires for these things, it is unhelpful to define them as 'more energy than you have'. As a first approximation I think 'energy required to counteract gravity; plus a similar (or smaller) portion to represent losses' is pretty intuitive for anti-gravity effects. And fusion produces a vast amount of energy per gram of fuel -- it is one place in the game where the predictions are wildly pessimistic.

Yes we do. We can approximate the mass of a ship based on prior statements (and better design systems).

A 200t free trader is approximately 2,000,000kg, to break orbit from an Earth size planet it needs 12,000m/s of velocity.
That's 1.44e11 kJ.

At 1g this will require 1200 seconds from a standing start.

1.44e14/1200=1.2e11J/s or 120,000,000,000J/s which is 120GW.

Someone somewhere took a stab at rating MgT HG EPs to real world units, I don't think it was quite this conversion.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Yeah, I don't use RUs at all. They don't tell Me anything that I need to know to worldbuild.

Ever use T4 Pocket Empires?

Once Fusion+ exists, that society is basically post-scarcity as far as energy goes. Fuel is basically unlimited since Hydrogen is the most abundant element in existence. Once power generation becomes post-scarcity, then only resource-scarcity needs to be taken into account. Why build a perpetual motion hydroelectric system when you can just drop a hose in the lake and call it done? Hydrogen is basically free.

And yet the setting is anything but.

I agree that fusion power (and maker technology) makes any TL12+ culture have the potential for being post scarcity, but the Third Imperium somehow limits things so that is not possible for the Imperial citizenry.

 

[Condottiere]

Theoretically, technological level six prefusion reactor would bring cheap, unlimited energy; technological level eight early fusion reactor definitely would.

Next up would be food, followed by shelter.

Clothing, circuses, vacations.

 

[MasterGwydion]

Ever use T4 Pocket Empires?

I own it, but it is horribly written conceptually.

And yet the setting is anything but.

I agree that fusion power (and maker technology) makes any TL12+ culture have the potential for being post scarcity, but the Third Imperium somehow limits things so that is not possible for the Imperial citizenry.

Only in power generation is TL-12+ post-scarcity. In all other ways, scarcity is still a big thing in Charted Space.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Unlimited energy and gravitics means nothing is scarce anymore.

You can harvest the resources of your entire system cheaply, and build habitats, agricultural facilities, industry where and when you need it.

 

[Geir]

Two things:
In my head, World Tamers and Pocket Empires are the same book: they deal with similar abstractions and timelines (and yes, it would be an interesting project, but not this year).

RUs, especially negative RUs are something I can only rationalise (for compatibility sake), not condone. Negative Efficiency is bad, and I did some GWP per capita stuff to use the 'feature' but, it only makes sense in the sense (cents?) that in the US, some states contribute more than they get back from the feds, others get back more than they contribute, but it does nothing to help you determine what a world can actually produce.

I was going to cite Beaxon in Deneb as an example of negative RU nonsense, but it looks like somebody (I'm looking at you Joshua) cleaned up the data. When the Elements Box Set came out and included the first Naval Adventure I cold swear Beaxon had a population of 80 billion and an Efficiency of -2, but now it's 90 billion (anther bugbear - at Pop A, there ought to be a Benford's law effect making anything above 30 Billion rare, but that's just my opinion, I could be wrong) and Efficiency -2. The original figures (which I remember from about 5 years ago, so it's possible the brain cells got scrambled by pandemic or alcoholic factors) would have been a drain on half the sector in terms of RU. Now (and I noticed this earlier for the Spinward Marches, all (or at least a statistically unlikely percentage) Pop A worlds seem to have positive Efficiency.

 

[MasterGwydion]

Two things:
In my head, World Tamers and Pocket Empires are the same book: they deal with similar abstractions and timelines (and yes, it would be an interesting project, but not this year).

RUs, especially negative RUs are something I can only rationalise (for compatibility sake), not condone. Negative Efficiency is bad, and I did some GWP per capita stuff to use the 'feature' but, it only makes sense in the sense (cents?) that in the US, some states contribute more than they get back from the feds, others get back more than they contribute, but it does nothing to help you determine what a world can actually produce.

I was going to cite Beaxon in Deneb as an example of negative RU nonsense, but it looks like somebody (I'm looking at you Joshua) cleaned up the data. When the Elements Box Set came out and included the first Naval Adventure I cold swear Beaxon had a population of 80 billion and an Efficiency of -2, but now it's 90 billion (anther bugbear - at Pop A, there ought to be a Benford's law effect making anything above 30 Billion rare, but that's just my opinion, I could be wrong) and Efficiency -2. The original figures (which I remember from about 5 years ago, so it's possible the brain cells got scrambled by pandemic or alcoholic factors) would have been a drain on half the sector in terms of RU. Now (and I noticed this earlier for the Spinward Marches, all (or at least a statistically unlikely percentage) Pop A worlds seem to have positive Efficiency.

Efficiency only really helps you figure out which planets cannot survive on their own.

 

[J. L. Brown]

Yes we do. We can approximate the mass of a ship based on prior statements (and better design systems).

A 200t free trader is approximately 2,000,000kg, to break orbit from an Earth size planet it needs 12,000m/s of velocity.
That's 1.44e14 kJ.

At 1g this will require 1200 seconds from a standing start.

1.44e14/1200=1.2e11J/s or 120,000,000,000J/s which is 120GW.

Someone somewhere took a stab at rating MgT HG EPs to real world units, I don't think it was quite this conversion.

120 GW is pretty trivial; 1g of H2 fused into He releases 250 MWh, so 0.48 kg (0.00048 tonnes) of H2 is enough. Of course, that assumes 100% efficiency.

The fusion generators in Mongoose 2e seem to have miserable efficiency, though. A 1 dTon fusion plant consumes 0.1 tonnes of fuel every two weeks, which works out to (up to) 25 TeraWatt-hours released over a 336 hour period; an output of 74.4 GW.

 

[MasterGwydion]

120 GW is pretty trivial; 1g of H2 fused into He releases 250 MWh, so 0.48 kg (0.00048 tonnes) of H2 is enough. Of course, that assumes 100% efficiency.

The fusion generators in Mongoose 2e seem to have miserable efficiency, though. A 1 dTon fusion plant consumes 0.1 tonnes of fuel every two weeks, which works out to (up to) 25 TeraWatt-hours released over a 336 hour period; an output of 74.4 GW.

This is why I prefer to use measurement systems in games that have no real-world definitions, as much as possible anyhow.

 

[Sigtrygg]

120 GW is pretty trivial; 1g of H2 fused into He releases 250 MWh, so 0.48 kg (0.00048 tonnes) of H2 is enough. Of course, that assumes 100% efficiency.

The fusion generators in Mongoose 2e seem to have miserable efficiency, though. A 1 dTon fusion plant consumes 0.1 tonnes of fuel every two weeks, which works out to (up to) 25 TeraWatt-hours released over a 336 hour period; an output of 74.4 GW.

250MWh is only 9e11J. Not enough to do it, you need 1.44e14J.

It is orders of magnitude higher then the only "official" number of 250MW per EP.

 

[J. L. Brown]

250MWh is only 9e11J. Not enough to do it, you need 1.44e14J.

It is orders of magnitude higher then the only "official" number of 250MW per EP.

250 MWh is what you get from doing fusion to 1 gram of hydrogen; that is why I said 480 grams of hydrogen would be enough. That is the same as using 0.00048 tonnes of hydrogen.

A 2 dTon fusion powerplant has an output approaching 150 GW, and a Free Trader has more powerplant than that available. This is why I complain when the authors do not bother to do the math; even a TL 15 Fusion plant puts out '20 power' per dTon, which comes to 3.72 GW per 'Power Point'. Antimatter is even worse.

 

[Nelphine]

another bugbear - at Pop A, there ought to be a Benford's law effect making anything above 30 Billion rare, but that's just my opinion, I could be wrong

My preference to resolve this (totally a house rule, not something I'm advocating for) is that a population of X doesn't mean X number of zeroes. It means from 50% of X number of zeroes to 50% of X+1 number of zeroes.

So Pop 6 isn't 'millions of population' its '500,000 to 5,000,000 population'.
Pop A isn't 10 billion to 100 billion, its 5 billion to 50 billion.

I realize this isn't at all by the book, but its how I handle my personal issue with Benford's law.

 

[Sigtrygg]

A 2 dTon fusion powerplant has an output approaching 150 GW, and a Free Trader has more powerplant than that available. This is why I complain when the authors do not bother to do the math; even a TL 15 Fusion plant puts out '20 power' per dTon, which comes to 3.72 GW per 'Power Point'. Antimatter is even worse.

Where are you getting 150GW from in game?
A CT fusion power plant on a type A had an output of 500MW, last time I looked the Mongoose EP is defined as way less than the CT EP. I agree that this can be fixed by increasing the EP to a more reasonable equivalence of EPs being GW - but then you have the issue of a GW laser...

 

[J. L. Brown]

Where are you getting 150GW from in game?
A CT fusion power plant on a type A had an output of 500MW, last time I looked the Mongoose EP is defined as way less than the CT EP. I agree that this can be fixed by increasing the EP to a more reasonable equivalence of EPs being GW - but then you have the issue of a GW laser...

I am getting it directly from the energy available from the fusion of H2 to He; actual physics. Burning 100 kg of hydrogen produces ~25000 GWh of energy; over a 336 hour (two week) period that works out to constant power of 74.4 GW. This is the total amount of energy available to all 1 dTon Fusion powerplants, regardless of Technology Level; I imagine the explanation is that 'lower tech powerplants capture less of the energy in a useful form' or something.

I think Traveller has been careless in the past with differentiating between 'Power' and 'Energy'; but a laser using a GW-second of energy is pretty trivial on a six minute (360 second) starship scale turn. In the 'Traveller 3e' conversation, I stated that I was perfectly happy to stop using 'power', and just use 'energy' instead.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Assuming 100% efficiency...
the sun is 0.7% efficient.

so 100/0.007=14,286. Hmm, 14 tons of hydrogen over two weeks...


well this is space magic after all.

 

[J. L. Brown]

Assuming 100% efficiency...
the sun is 0.7% efficient.

so 100/0.007=14,286. Hmm, 14 tons of hydrogen over two weeks...


well this is space magic after all.

1} How do you reach 0.7 % efficiency for the sun?
2} Processes where technology intercedes is often more productive than undirected 'natural' processes.

 

[Sigtrygg]

I looked it up.

We have yet to get more energy out of a stadium sized fusion power plant than is put in.

The news headlines always conveniently forget to mention the efficiency of the laser, or the electromagnetic confinement.

 

[J. L. Brown]

Please provide a citation, then.

I suspect your 'efficiency' is referring to the fact that not all of the mass is converted into energy; and that is correct but misguided -- the only way to get 100% of the energy out of all the mass present is to disintegrate all of the mass. That is more typically ascribed to antimatter, and can be approached by dropping stuff into a black hole & harvesting the resulting energy as it spirals in -- neither of which are commonplace at TL 15.

If so, then your '14 dTons of hydrogen' calculation is fundamentally flawed; the 74.4 GW (that I talked about above) energy that is available is already 100% of what is released from fusion. It is not then followed by some mysterious 99.3% 'loss' which 'brings it down' to 0.07%. The task of a fusion powerplant is twofold: 1} perform fusion with less energy than comes out of the fusion; 2} capture the resulting energy in a useful form. So far, at TL 7, we have not managed it -- but will almost certainly have it solved sometime in TL 8.

 

[Nelphine]

Well, we'll solve 1. 2 will probably take a much longer time (and is probably a big reason why tl 8, 12, and 15 fusion power plants have different outputs)

 

[MasterGwydion]

Okay. So, I think I figured out the problem. The profit versus maintenance cost percentage is whacked out.

Fuel Refinery 0.02%
Mineral Refinery / Smelter 0.39%
Manufacturing Plant, Basic 0.07%
Manufacturing Plant, Advanced 0.27%
Manufacturing Plant, Specialist 0.03%
Manufacturing Plant, Agricultural 5.49%

Solution? Increase their size per ton of output.

Fuel Refinery 1 ton / 1,365 tons
Mineral Refinery / Smelter 1 ton / 65 tons
Manufacturing Plant, Basic 1 ton / 342 tons
Manufacturing Plant, Advanced 1 ton / 92 tons
Manufacturing Plant, Specialist 1 ton / 728 tons
Manufacturing Plant, Agricultural 1 ton / 4.6 tons

Now, I am having trouble using Excel to figure out exactly how much bigger these components need to be to achieve the desired 25% of its output being chewed up by maintenance. With an average of 50% value of seed materials and 25% given over to maintenance, plus however much more for the additional personnel, should give Us a good Manufacturing system that is way less overpowered than the one We have now.

btw... I am using these numbers for price per ton of goods
Fuel Refinery 0.0005/MCr/ton of fuel
Mineral Refinery / Smelter 0.01065MCr / ton of the two Raw Materials (Common and Uncommon)
MP, Basic 0.015MCr/ton of goods
MP, Advanced 0.115MCr/ton of goods
MP, Specialist 0.4MCr/ton of goods
MP, Agricultural 0.0005MCr/ton of Basic Consumables.

Can anyone run the calculations since I seem to be incompetent with Excel?