Captain, we cannae give her any more powah!

[copperhamster]

Ok I was fiddling with a design, since you can build a 9G Maneuver drive at Tech Level 13, for a 100 ton 'racer' (It's a rich kid's toy, not a real ship. Though I was going to try to shoehorn a Jump-A on it so it could take itself to the races).
Only I can't.
Maneuver Drive-9G is available at TL 13
However, by the rules, it requires a Power Source capable of Power-9
Power Plant-9 is TL 16

Hmmm.
Actually if you interpolate, you COULD get away with this. PowerPlant E actually gives you performance 10, but that's off the end of the ruler, so we call it a 9. an Early-E would produce 90% power, giving you an actual performance of 9 at tech level 15. Am I right?

Hmm I think I have answered my own question here. At tech 13, you could build it but the drives would look like this:
For a 100 ton hull:
Maneuver Drive-E, 9 tons, 18 MCr
Power Plant-M-Exp, 37 tons, 370MCr
Fuel tankage of 18 tons required for 30 days of Maneuver drive operation.
...
64% available tonnage for drive, power, and fuel and it's not even a Starship.
...
You know that DOES look like a Lambo or Ferrari

 

[aramis]

Another 14% should give it J1...

 

[Zutroi]

You could install 2 factor 5 plants... (Implied by reference to '2N' Jump drives)

 

[Magnus von Thornwood]

This right here.

You could install 2 factor 5 plants... (Implied by reference to '2N' Jump drives)

Yeah, if you need more power just put two lower power plants together in an array. That should do the trick.

 

[Vladika]

Yeah, if you need more power just put two lower power plants together in an array. That should do the trick.

And that's another thing driving me crazy. Before you were forbidden to have multiple PPs operating at the same time (Stupid Rule...). Now you are encouraged...(Better Rule)

I like the idea of using multiple Book 2 PPs to allow for Book 5 power requirements.

Also, semi "powered down" by using one PP (Book 2 and/or Book 5) to operate ships systems, less weapons, to conserve fuel. Only when going "battle ready" do you power up the next PP.

(I know, I'm avoiding T5 until I'm more familiar with it.) Thanks to posts by robject and BytePro, I'm being more open minded about T5.