Using High Efficiency Batteries for Jump Drives

Sageryne

Banded Mongoose
Hi all,

In a discussion on a new ship I posted, we were discussing saving space. Terry Mixon made this comment:


I went back and looked at my own design.

That saves a few tons (depending on your design). You only size your power plant large enough for your manoeuvre drive, basic ship requirements and ancillary items (weapons, sensors etc). Then, when the ship is not using much power (including during the jump itself, when you are not using your manoeuvre drives), you charge your high efficiency batteries.

In my example ship, it uses only 80 power for a jump-2. High Efficiency batteries store 60 power per ton at TL12. So, 1.33 (call it 1.5) tons is enough.

Is there any reason why you couldn't do that?

If not, why doesn't every design use this trick?

- Kerry
 
I use the trick too. Since the consensus (oh, I shouldn't say that - a ten page argument may ensue) is that you only need to power the jump drive during jump, it works fine (and even if you needed to keep it powered, you're not using m-drive, sensors, or weapons in jump space, so you still don't need all the power all the time.)

The high capacity batteries are sort of like the Astrogator... only need to wake them up once per jump to do that one thing.
 
It's essentiality depends on how much you need to scoop from the power pool, at any one time.

The times you have a massive surge requirement, tends to be weapons discharge, accelerating, and propulsing.

It's an exercise in minimization/maximization, the most prominent example, currently, being the Express Boat.
 
This sort of thing seems like a min/max gamer decision. The 'average' Imperial ship wouldn't do the min/max because it's logical. If it were then all ships would adopt it in order to take advantage of it.

Now, any custom ship is where you start seeing these min/max designs coming to fruition. Kind of like the Disco Volante ship from the Bond movie Thunderball. Technically possible, but a singular design because it's not practical. Or like the NS Savannah nuclear powered freighter that proved things could be done, but wasn't economically practical to operate. Other examples - the nuclear powered B-36 plane, or the MacClean SL-7 clipper container ships that zipped across the Atlantic and were unprofitable (due to spike in oil and they were thirsty buggers).

I've got nothing against the rules allowing for setting changes (it can make for some fantastical designs that are downright exciting and creative). However I think it's good to continually reinforce the idea that the standards of the spaceways ain't these min/max designs.
 
This sort of thing seems like a min/max gamer decision. The 'average' Imperial ship wouldn't do the min/max because it's logical. If it were then all ships would adopt it in order to take advantage of it.

Now, any custom ship is where you start seeing these min/max designs coming to fruition. Kind of like the Disco Volante ship from the Bond movie Thunderball. Technically possible, but a singular design because it's not practical. Or like the NS Savannah nuclear powered freighter that proved things could be done, but wasn't economically practical to operate. Other examples - the nuclear powered B-36 plane, or the MacClean SL-7 clipper container ships that zipped across the Atlantic and were unprofitable (due to spike in oil and they were thirsty buggers).

I've got nothing against the rules allowing for setting changes (it can make for some fantastical designs that are downright exciting and creative). However I think it's good to continually reinforce the idea that the standards of the spaceways ain't these min/max designs.
Except not power enough for your jump drive is an ages old thing: Jump dimming on Vilani ships, because they didn't even have enough power to run the jump drive and full life support (this, if you think about it, could only be the case on a J-2 drive ship with M-1, otherwise you'd not have enough power to accelerate under normal operating conditions). Military ships would probably want to do things differently and have enough power for all systems so they could absorb some damage from power plant criticals and keep fighting.

But the question of whether you'd bother with high-efficiency batteries, or just run without enough power for jump most of the time... yeah, maybe you'd just dim the lights. Could be a problem for a J-3 liner, but not most ships. So the real cheap answer is to go without. My half-functional spreadsheet for ships keeps tracks of 'power requirements (less jump)' specifically with that in mind.

But batteries are a good standby - even an emergency power source to give your engineers a round or two to fix the main plant.

Of course, different philosophies for different purposes and cultures. Hivers should probably have their quarters and control center in a heavily armoured and stealthed breakaway hull section and K'kree should have ships designed with so much open spaces that armoured bulkheads are neigh impossible.

Maybe the battery option is a Solomani standard specifically because jump dimming is the 'Vilani way'.
 
In theory, despite rules to the contrary, you could direct energy direct from the solar panels to the jump drive.

For the extended array, I'd add plus one to misjump, since for some reason they're going to be torn off, and that's going to mess with the transition.
 
Is there any reason why you couldn't do that?

If not, why doesn't every design use this trick?

- Kerry

If you decide that High Energy batteries power jump drives in your game that’s completely cool.

Existing designs don’t use it because page 17 of High Guard specifically says that only Fusion and antimatter power plants can be used for Jumps or, at TL14, Collectors on page 83.

I like the idea of batteries and generally use them to cover the 20% of displacement for ship power requirements when the Jump drive is using all the power plant’s output.
 
If you decide that High Energy batteries power jump drives in your game that’s completely cool.

Existing designs don’t use it because page 17 of High Guard specifically says that only Fusion and antimatter power plants can be used for Jumps or, at TL14, Collectors on page 83.

I like the idea of batteries and generally use them to cover the 20% of displacement for ship power requirements when the Jump drive is using all the power plant’s output.
On page 44, it directly equates the power stored in high-efficiency batteries to what is generated by the power plant that produced it.

HIGH-EFFICIENCY BATTERIES
Ship-board batteries are designed to store power until needed. They can be recharged in any round with excess Power not being used by other systems. This Power can then be used in subsequent rounds as if they were being produced by the power plant; simply add the amount of Power stored within the batteries (they need not be completely drained) to the Power the ship has available that round.
 
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The moment that batteries became kosher for jump drive power source, it became agnostic.

The amount of energy required is stated, and power output is measurable from all sources.

If you can get a hamster to spin his wheel fast enough for six minutes, you could utilize that to jump.


giphy.gif
 
Except not power enough for your jump drive is an ages old thing: Jump dimming on Vilani ships, because they didn't even have enough power to run the jump drive and full life support (this, if you think about it, could only be the case on a J-2 drive ship with M-1, otherwise you'd not have enough power to accelerate under normal operating conditions). Military ships would probably want to do things differently and have enough power for all systems so they could absorb some damage from power plant criticals and keep fighting.

But the question of whether you'd bother with high-efficiency batteries, or just run without enough power for jump most of the time... yeah, maybe you'd just dim the lights. Could be a problem for a J-3 liner, but not most ships. So the real cheap answer is to go without. My half-functional spreadsheet for ships keeps tracks of 'power requirements (less jump)' specifically with that in mind.

But batteries are a good standby - even an emergency power source to give your engineers a round or two to fix the main plant.

Of course, different philosophies for different purposes and cultures. Hivers should probably have their quarters and control center in a heavily armoured and stealthed breakaway hull section and K'kree should have ships designed with so much open spaces that armoured bulkheads are neigh impossible.

Maybe the battery option is a Solomani standard specifically because jump dimming is the 'Vilani way'.
Batteries as a standby is kinda what batteries are for. Just a few minutes of batteries would mean no jump dimming required.

The "jump dimming" was written for show in the manuals. Gravity is going to be the biggest consumer of power not a light bulb. And you never read about the grav plating fluctuating or the inertial dampeners allowing some G forces to creep into the ship (those two alone would offer FAR more power than lights and air). (Added) Now that I think about it, if they really wanted to create a more believable and logical scene about power shortages, they SHOULD have written it that the lights didn't dim, but that passengers had to strap in for jump as grav plating was reduced (if you stop the engines you kill any need for inertial dampeners, so that should get tossed out the window as well.

A simple 1Cr capacitor would also keep a light on (especially since it would be LEDs or a more effecient equivalent) on for the duration of activation of the jump drive (and this was also when the hull contained the jump grid, not the MGT version of exotic particles / mumble-mumble of the jump drive being activated. Heck, even if you made it Das Boot in Space where the life support fans shut down most crew and passengers would not notice because they aren't feeling the air blowing on them anyways (and you never would in something that had decently design air vents).

I get the added flavor of setting a picture, but sometimes the authors really do hoist themselves on their own petards. Jump dimming really belongs more in a tv show or a story than rules to a game that has a quasi-science base (and much arguments are made over the SCIENCE in the fiction).

Just my centi-credit.
 
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The moment that batteries became kosher for jump drive power source, it became agnostic.

The amount of energy required is stated, and power output is measurable from all sources.

If you can get a hamster to spin his wheel fast enough for six minutes, you could utilize that to jump.


giphy.gif
Still, one million hamsters in one million wheels can't write Hamlet complete an astrogation calculation.

The batteries, as described seem more like capacitors to me, but I suppose if you can discharge them at a variable rate then batteries is probably a better term. But I last took an electrical engineering class... oh crap 42 years ago (that's 10.5 terms, and I think unused skills should atrophy from lack of use, all except Drive (bicycle))... even after working for a power utility for a quarter century I'm still afraid of electricity (maybe even more so) so I'm far from the expert.

There also this silly undefined 'overclocking' thing that T5 might or might not say, but it definitely says Fission is not allowed, presumably because does not produce the required 'extremely rapid (and inefficient) process' required to puncture space. The hamsters need cocaine or at least amphetamines to power the jump drive. Of course, that's T5, an interesting arcane reference that is not necessarily compatible with MgT2.

But I want to be the spinning rodent, not the running one - free rider principle... Dramamine not included
 
... even after working for a power utility for a quarter century I'm still afraid of electricity (maybe even more so) so I'm far from the expert.
When you know, so you immediately look to see if there is a wooden handled broom nearby whenever anyone talks about poking around in an equipment cabinet...
 
I've been to Trinity Site. Fission can be very good at extremely rapid and inefficient, but you want to be sitting behind a berm a mile upwind.
Or better yet, at least one state upwind of the Jet Stream.
Still remember the hourly swipe tests and air samples on the flight deck after Chernobyl.
 
I have no objection to overclocking power plants.

But since batteries are considered to be able to provide their complete capacity in six minutes, it wouldn't make a difference.
 
Another thing that has kind of bothered me...

How is "Power" measured? I am fine with fusion reactors PRODUCING a certain amount of power, then "Power" is measuring continuous output (say megawatts). I am fine with a ship NEEDING a certain amount of power, then "Power" is measuring continuous demand (also megawatts).

But what about High Efficient Batteries? They are a storage device. It is not stated for how long they discharge power for. It is kind of implied that they store one round (six seconds) worth of power.

That could explain the issue with using them for a jump. How long does it actually take to make a jump? In the Core Rule Book, page 62, it uses jumping as an example of something that takes 1 second. If so, then you could do it with batteries. However, if it is 6 minutes, then you would need sixty times the amount of batteries to continuously discharge for that length of time (thus the reason you need a fusion reactor).

Thoughts?

- Kerry
 
You have to power the jump drive (and presumably associated components, like the bridge).

Currently, that's in a six minute window.

Power plants produce stated amount of energy in a six minute interval.

Logic dictates that battery capacity is stated in units that follow that time period.
 
You have to power the jump drive (and presumably associated components, like the bridge).

Currently, that's in a six minute window.

Power plants produce stated amount of energy in a six minute interval.

Logic dictates that battery capacity is stated in units that follow that time period.
Good information. Can you point me to the reference that says that power is produced in 6 minute intervals? I assume you are referring to one space combat turn?
 
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