Combined Power-Propulsion units

[dale_albiston]

A house rule...

combining the reactor and thrusters into a single package saves space and fuel (not much but a bit), its more local colour than anything else.

full details, along with a worked example the JX-425 CPP array are on my alter-egos site.

its basically a way of adding a bit of 'colour' to my games, as well as saving a miniscle amount of fuel.

anyone else do anything like this?
Traveller at The Lost Plot

btw the ship meantioned 'nebula-2' is under design now, 5,000 DT multi-role frigate... I'll post a summary when its done, and now I've got my scanner working maybe even a piccy..

 

[The Oz]

In my house rules for designing LBB2-compatible small craft I used combined "drive" units that were maneuver drive and powerplant in one package.

You can see my rules here: The Oz's rules for LBB2 small craft

 

[Border Reiver]

Welcome aboard (though time may be running out).

The drive/power combination reminds me of a failed (due to RL) attempt to put together a set of standard modules for MT ship design.

The project was abandoned and when TNE came out we also tried to create FF&S modules to simplify ship building but we thought that with a clippers supplement coming out we would wait and rob that for ideas.....alas not to be.

 

[dale_albiston]

part of the idea was actually to create 'modules' the JX-425 can simply be dropped in, i suppose including some computing power (maybe) would help, or actually just listing the CP requirements..

a few other modules will also be designed, along with a nice modular cruiser (if you've seen it think the SparrowHawk/SkyHawk from SFB)

i do most of my design work with a somewhat complex spreadsheet since my attempts at coding a ship builder haven't yet worked out the way i like.

frankly I tend to optimise ships to death, but i tend to get better performance out of them (e.g. longer endurance and more cargo)

Never seen FFS, just stick with MT here so things being rendered 'old' never a problem

 

[Pickles]

Before I got distracted by Gruffty's Spica project, I was toying with having completely modular technology for one of the states in my ATU. That means everything has its own powersource - computers, life support, jump drive, manoeuvre drive, you name it. It's one way to add design flavour, so that not every place in the universe does things exactly the same way.

 

[Straybow]

OK, but it works better with some sort of cold fusion than traditional Trav hot fusion.

 

[dale_albiston]

oh i tend to include assume the somewhat poor fuel efficency of traveller fusion drives is related to losses in moving waste heat around.

also a fair bit of the volume & mass (maybe 25%) is in radiators and associated equipment, with a further 25% being cooling equipment mounted to the reactor assembly.

the JX-425 'saves' some power when operating by diverting a portion of its fuel through the thruster (no change in fuel consumption) this 'waste' fuel is somewhat warm as it leaves the thruster, aiding the cooling effect.

as designed the engine supports one or two cooling vanes (depending on application).

i've not gone into too much detail over exactly how big the radiators need to be etc just that they 'look right'.

but yes 'cold fusion' would avoid many of these problems.

hmmm....