Travellers Needed! High Guard Updates

[Vormaerin]

So, based on a conversation in discord... I think it would not hurt to clarify what's involved in transferring the fuel from a fuel bladder to the actual fuel tanks. It implies this is an actual hassle in some way, but afaict it is not explicit how long it takes or whether you can do it with the drives active (like in jump space).

Is it a big deal? Not really. But some folks are like "there's not really any game mechanics to distinguish between fuel bladders and fuel/cargo containers, just nebulous fluff. Probably should make the fluff less nebulous if possible.

 

[Condottiere]

The obvious intent was to prevent it being an alternative to normal fuel tanks.

As to why it can't be used to feed the jump drive?

Throughput and pressure.

 

[Terry Mixon]

So, based on a conversation in discord... I think it would not hurt to clarify what's involved in transferring the fuel from a fuel bladder to the actual fuel tanks. It implies this is an actual hassle in some way, but afaict it is not explicit how long it takes or whether you can do it with the drives active (like in jump space).

Is it a big deal? Not really. But some folks are like "there's not really any game mechanics to distinguish between fuel bladders and fuel/cargo containers, just nebulous fluff. Probably should make the fluff less nebulous if possible.

The fuel bladders can’t be used for jump but a fuel/cargo container can. Has to be somewhat different.

 

[Vormaerin]

Yeah, they are clearly different. But, outside of having a J4 ship that uses fuel/cargo containers in case it jumps less than J4 often enough to care, there's no mechanics distinguishing between the two in terms of allowing additional jumps.

If I jump into a system and go "OH SHEET" and decide I need to jump again immediately, you would think there is a difference between the two. But there is no rules about it. Do I have to send a crewman down to the cargo bay to hook up stuff and run a pump? How long does this take? Can I do it in jump space so it's already done before I get to my destination, so all of this is irrelevant? Or is that like refueling your car with the engine running?

If you are in a situation where you have two J1 clusters separated by a J2 gap and you want to be able to cross that gap from time to time in your fat trader is the fuel bladder just the hands down better option? It takes up 1/5th the space and is 1/10th the price and there is just some "it's potentially inconvenient" fluff to distinguish them.

 

[Terry Mixon]

Yeah, they are clearly different. But, outside of having a J4 ship that uses fuel/cargo containers in case it jumps less than J4 often enough to care, there's no mechanics distinguishing between the two in terms of allowing additional jumps.

If I jump into a system and go "OH SHEET" and decide I need to jump again immediately, you would think there is a difference between the two. But there is no rules about it. Do I have to send a crewman down to the cargo bay to hook up stuff and run a pump? How long does this take? Can I do it in jump space so it's already done before I get to my destination, so all of this is irrelevant? Or is that like refueling your car with the engine running?

If you are in a situation where you have two J1 clusters separated by a J2 gap and you want to be able to cross that gap from time to time in your fat trader is the fuel bladder just the hands down better option? It takes up 1/5th the space and is 1/10th the price and there is just some "it's potentially inconvenient" fluff to distinguish them.

 

[hopsnbaer]

The obvious intent was to prevent it being an alternative to normal fuel tanks.

As to why it can't be used to feed the jump drive?

Throughput and pressure.

So you have to stop. I have a J-2 and a J1 Fuel Tank. I also have a J1 Fuel/Cargo, and a J1 Fuel Bladder. If I use the Fuel/Cargo I can go my full J2 distance. If I use the fuel bladder I need to make two jump 1's because I cant feed the engine from the Bladder.

 

[Vormaerin]

So you have to stop. I have a J-2 and a J1 Fuel Tank. I also have a J1 Fuel/Cargo, and a J1 Fuel Bladder. If I use the Fuel/Cargo I can go my full J2 distance. If I use the fuel bladder I need to make two jump 1's because I cant feed the engine from the Bladder.

Yes, the question is whether there is any functional difference between these two situations
J1 Drive with Fuel/Cargo Container for extra Jump
J1 Drive with Fuel Bladder for extra Jump.

Or do Fuel/Cargo containers only exist for high jump ships wanting to short their fuel tankage?

This isn't hypothetical. It is the exactly situation presented in The Traveller Adventure and in Islands in the Rift.

 

[Terry Mixon]

Yes, the question is whether there is any functional difference between these two situations
J1 Drive with Fuel/Cargo Container for extra Jump
J1 Drive with Fuel Bladder for extra Jump.

Or do Fuel/Cargo containers only exist for high jump ships wanting to short their fuel tankage?

This isn't hypothetical. It is the exactly situation presented in The Traveller Adventure and in Islands in the Rift.

I built my Kinhome-Class Merchant with a fuel/cargo container because I wanted the flexibility or going J1 with more cargo or less cargo and manage J2. It even has fuel bladders to allow two consecutive J2 if needed. Thats my answer: flexibility.

 

[Vormaerin]

That's the answer to a different question. Obviously, if you want to carry less than the fuel needed for your maximum jump, the only option is a fuel/cargo container.

The question is whether it is intended that this is its only actual use case, which is how the rules are written. There is fluff written about how the fuel bladders have issues, but that fluff has no game effect. If you want to be able to make two consecutive jumps, as written, fuel bladders take up less space and cost less. And they have no quantified downsides, just some suggestion that they might be more awkward.

Both The Traveller Adventure and Islands in the Rift feature J1 ships that need to be able to cross larger gaps from time to time. Because their downsides are flavor text with no mechanics, Fuel bladders are absolutely 100% the correct choice (absent house rules).

If that's the intention, fine. But, because there is that flavor text, it isn't clear that is actually what is intended. I'm perfectly fine houseruling the fluff into adventure situation opportunities. However, the thread was asking for things that might deserve a look for clarity. It might be that the current RAW is correct (in which case the flavor text suggesting otherwise should probably be cleaned out). Or the flavor text is supposed to actually be a meaningful drawback, in which case some additional clarifications should be included. Like how long does it take to transfer the fuel and can you do in jump space?

In my campaign, you can't fill the fuel tanks with the drives engaged and it takes a while to do the transfer. One load of fuel for a J1 Fat trader is 54,000 liters of liquid hydrogen. Seems reasonable that hooking up your portable fuel pump and transferring that much liquid would take a bit of time, given you don't have a big industrial pump.

But that's all house rules. You could have a space magic super efficient portable pump that does 10,000 liters/minute, so you are more likely to be waiting on the astrogator than the fuel transfer. There's nothing in the rules that says it takes more than an eyeblink to transfer the fuel and, more importantly, there's nothing saying you can't do it while you are in jump space. And if you can just move the fuel while in jump space, literally all the flavor text about its downsides becomes nonsense.

 

[Condottiere]

That seems the obvious cheat, refilling a normal fuel tank, and indirectly, the fuel bladder is one degree away from doing what it obviously wasn't supposed to.

However, It's all supposed to occur in the same six minutes, and if you did that, you'd need twelve.

 

[Vormaerin]

That seems the obvious cheat, refilling a normal fuel tank, and indirectly, the fuel bladder is one degree away from doing what it obviously wasn't supposed to.

However, It's all supposed to occur in the same six minutes, and if you did that, you'd need twelve.

I have no idea what you are talking about. I can't figure out how anything you posted related to what I said. What's refueling the fuel bladder? And why is anything taking 12 minutes?

You are the March Harrier, a subbie, and you need to be able to make 2 x J1 instead of just J1. That requires carrying 40tons of fuel in your cargo bay.

Fuel Bladder: Requires 40 tons to carry the 40 tons of fuel. They take up 0.4 tons of your cargo space if empty.
Fuel/Cargo Container: Requires 40 tons for the fuel, plus 2 tons of equipment. That 2 tons of equipment remains used even if you are carrying cargo.

So, you are down 2 tons of space (5% of the ship) if you are running with the the extra fuel. And you are down 1.6 tons of space compared to the bladder if you are not carrying the extra fuel. From that point of view, the fuel/cargo container is clearly inferior. That's 1500 to 2000 credits foregone for every jump for the life of your ship. Quite expensive.

All it says about the fuel bladder is: Fuel cannot be pumped directly from these tanks to the jump drive, so a ship must complete a jump before it can use fuel stored in collapsible tanks.

What I think could use clarification for people who want RAW to be clear is:
1) Does "complete a jump" mean "enters jump space" or "exits jumpspace".
2) How long does it take to transfer the fuel from the bladder to the tanks.

Because the most likely way in which a bladder might pose a problem is (assuming the complete a jump means exits jump space) if you arrive at your destination and realize that the space is dangerous and you need to jump out again ASAP. A crash Astrogation plot takes 1d6 minutes. Can you transfer the fuel in that time or not? If not, what is the minimum time?

Obviously, if "complete a jump" means "successfully enter jump space", then the transfer time is irrelevant, because you can't be under time pressure on this score in jump space.

 

[Anstett]

The obvious answer for refueling from a bladder is that it is the same as refueling anywhere.
"...compared to the 1-2 hours..." - Starship Operators Manual pg 24
Or an older book "A Refuelling Station can transfer one ton of fuel per minute." - from MGP3857 Starports pg 49

 

[Condottiere]

The fuel bladder seems to be the only source which you can't use to directly feed the jump drive.

No idea why, so it's mostly speculation.

If it's throughput, either it requires seven times more time to empty the bladder than a default tank, and/or there are only so many pumps that can be installed in the jump drive.

Standard operational procedure would be to empty the bladder into the fuel tank, probably immediately after transition had been kickstarted.

 

[Terry Mixon]

The fuel bladder seems to be the only source which you can't use to directly feed the jump drive.

No idea why, so it's mostly speculation.

If it's throughput, either it requires seven times more time to empty the bladder than a default tank, and/or there are only so many pumps that can be installed in the jump drive.

Standard operational procedure would be to empty the bladder into the fuel tank, probably immediately after transition had been kickstarted.

Install an UNREP system to drain them in a jiffy?

 

[Condottiere]

This would be something specific to the jump drive, so probably not.

How that would relate between the bladder and the fuel tank, you probably could use that to increase the flow, but the bottleneck likely remains the jump drive, which means that drainage is sufficient for the existing tank, and you'd need another round for the inflowing fuel from the bladder to make it's way to the jump drive, via the fuel tank.

 

[Vormaerin]

The obvious answer for refueling from a bladder is that it is the same as refueling anywhere.
"...compared to the 1-2 hours..." - Starship Operators Manual pg 24
Or an older book "A Refuelling Station can transfer one ton of fuel per minute." - from MGP3857 Starports pg 49

That's similar to how I houserule it, but it is absolutely a houserule and this is a thread asking for topics that should be cleaned up in the next High Guard revision.

 

[Anstett]

That is what I am saying, it is not a house rule, those are the rules Mongoose has in other publications about how fast you can pump fuel.

 

[Vormaerin]

So, then put that IN the core rules if that's what is intended, but SOP and Starports are quite far from the core rules.

They are also very different situations. I would expect a starport to have a powerful industrial pump. Whereas your merchant ship spending 0 space on equipment is unlikely to have such a thing. A merchant ship is unlikely to have a "Refueling station" in its cargo hold, especially at no cost in credits or volume.

 

[Vormaerin]

There seems to be some confusion here. I don't need an answer to this question myself. I am just fine making up my own rules to cover situations like this. And I own practically everything in the line and large chunks of everything going back to 1977 if I need references. I don't consider either of those things to be normative for the player base.

@paltrysum asked for areas in High Guard that could use tweaking in a HG'26 edition. It is my opinion, based on seeing new players asking about it, that this is one such thing. If one has the opinion that it should not be clarified in High Guard '26, then fine, we can disagree.

 

[NOLATrav]

Last game I was in, we used fuel bladders but they were permanently hooked up to the main tanks and basically part of the cargo hold.

If the ship’s entire tankage was empty, you’d have to fully fill your main tanks, then overfill to inflate the bladder. Assuming the cargo space around the bladder was available.

Then you have a choice of depleting the bladder immediately on your next jump or holding it for the next one. It’s a moot point really, more about roleplay decisions than any ship ops mechanic. They’re functionally the same, unless you want to pick up some extra cargo at your next port of call. If so, you’ll deplete the bladder on this jump, load up and have full main tanks for the jump out.

A fuel bladder is an upgrade to your main fuel tanks, at the occasional cost of cargo space. Clarification could be that it is actually a permanent fixture at some point in your cargo bay, probably where it shares a bulkhead with fuel tankage.

This is how we read the rules. Haven’t bumped into a timing issue yet, everything sort of lives in the jump-week.