FTL Drives other than Jump Drive

[aramis]

I can't figure out what it is that costs Cr1900 per fortnight in life support (the Cr100 is for food, of course) in normal starships, but whatever it is, I surmise that a bigger life support system would be able to cut down on that expense (Otherwise I suspect that orbital habitats would be impossible). If the alterdrive is a lot less expensive per dT, a ship could afford to install a big life support system instead of the amazingly expensive one that is the norm for standard starships.

Oxygen tankage Cr 20 per 6 hours (TTB 107, Oxygen tank refill), or Cr80 per day x14 days (the maximum expendature for the KCr2) is Cr1120, less 10% for bulk, Cr1008.

Preserved food: Cr20 per day (TTB 109), less 10% for bulk, Cr18 * 14 days, Cr252. CO2 scrubber (LiOH) canisters; call them Cr4 per day (ebay shows small canisters, about 1/4 the size of the 4 day apollo ones, for about US$20; a few surplus ones for $5). Cr56 for 14 days.

that's Cr1428.

Add cleaning supplies, bedding, shampoo, and delivery... plus some nitrogen replacement...

And sales tax...

Clea

 

[rancke]

Of course, whether the effects of the any retcon are minor or major will eventually be a GM's decision.

Not that I expect to persuade Marc Miller to allow such a retcon, so this is quite academic, but an official retcon would affect the portrayal of the OTU.

How much cheaper would your proposed drive be? Half? A third? A quarter? I'm guessing a quarter because the drive takes four times longer to travel a parsec than the standard jump drive.

As I said at the start, I haven't bothered to work out the details, but assuming that I was hired by Marc Miller to come up with something or was struck with an uncontrollable desire to do so on my own, as a first approximation I'd say 1/10th of the cost, with a life support system that took up more volume but was a lot cheaper to run (Life support for a month need to cost the same or less than ordinary life support for 14 days).

Would your proposed drive be limited in range too? Only good for a parsec? Or could there be jump2, jump3, etc. versions too?

It wouldn't be a jump drive. Stutterwarp, warp drive, Mannschen drive, whatever.

The reasons I'm asking this is that I immediately envisioned cheap battlerider tenders after reading your post. Spending a month in jump isn't that much of an inconvenience if you're moving lots of riders on the cheap.

Maybe not, but what part of the existing canon about the OTU would have to be changed if we suddenly found out that the IN was moving battleriders about by Superluminal Realspace Drive? We know very little about the composition and organization of the Imperium's combat squadrons, but we know a durn sight less about the composition and organization of the auxiliary units.


Hans

 

[rancke]

Oxygen tankage Cr 20 per 6 hours (TTB 107, Oxygen tank refill), or Cr80 per day x14 days (the maximum expendature for the KCr2) is Cr1120, less 10% for bulk, Cr1008.

Preserved food: Cr20 per day (TTB 109), less 10% for bulk, Cr18 * 14 days, Cr252. CO2 scrubber (LiOH) canisters; call them Cr4 per day (ebay shows small canisters, about 1/4 the size of the 4 day apollo ones, for about US$20; a few surplus ones for $5). Cr56 for 14 days.

that's Cr1428.

Thanks for that. It's a good try. I'm extremely sceptical of the notion that bulk purchase of oxygen would only involve a 10% discount, but I'll accept it for purposes of this argument. We could also save Cr15 per man per day for the first X days by buying fresh food, but I'll accept that that's below the level of managble detail (Though I've known players who'd insist on saving those 4-500 credits).

Now here's what I'd tell my referee if he gave me that explanation:

"OK, so that's roughly Cr100 per day in space. We button up, blast off and reach safe jump distance in 372 minutes... call it 7 hours. We jump, spend... 175 hours the jump took, did you say? Spend 175 hours in jump, then spend another 348 minutes getting to our destination. That's a total of 188 hours... round that up to 8 days. So we used up 800 credits per warm body... plus the 600 for the incidentals (Some day you have to tell me what those are; 600 credits are a lot of money). That's 1400 credits apiece we have to replace, a clear saving of 600 credits times 14, 8,400 credits saved, and, boy, can we use the money!"​

Neither crew nor passengers use up air when they're on a planet. Not a T-norm planet, anyway... On Aramis or a space station it might be a different matter.

But not such a big difference. TTA, p. 34 implies that a day's worth of oxygen costs less than Cr10 to produce for a big habitat.

So what if the referee ring in jump masking? Fine by me. As long as he's prepared to furnish us players with information about which of the neighboring worlds are masked and how much that affects transit times to each of them, to help us decide where to go next.

Edit: And to adjust the trade table to reflect that we're no longer making two jumps per month.

Add cleaning supplies, bedding, shampoo, and delivery... plus some nitrogen replacement...

"600 credits? Sounds rather expensive. I'd need a breakdown; maybe I'll see what kind of deal your competitor is willing to give me." ;^)


Hans

 

[aramis]

I had a player try that. I was willing to prorate that.. but I also presume IMTU that the passage coupon is NOT cashable per se, but is redeem for cash and the "LS Kit recharge", and the meals are self heating (There is no kitchen; there is a microwave and a small fridge for every 10SR), and the O2 is bulk, and the scrubbers are integrated units for which part of the price discount is turning in the old canisters (they don't GIVE them, they insist on swapping them), and it's a big nasty megacorp scam. He could prorate LS for his own ship. But he couldn't cash tickets that way. And passengers got upset over that.

The O2 discount is probably not enough for the kind of bulk we're talking about. that's to cylinders of O2 in a TL5 HP tank; the same O2 can be put into about 4L of cryo-liquid, and if you have an FPP, I'd say it's availble free from either water or amonia cracking. However, that 10cr from Aramis isn't cryo or UHP fluids; on Aramis, you still pay Cr20 to refill tanks for 6 man-hours...

 

[rancke]

I had a player try that. I was willing to prorate that.. but I also presume IMTU that the passage coupon is NOT cashable per se, but is redeem for cash and the "LS Kit recharge", and the meals are self heating (There is no kitchen; there is a microwave and a small fridge for every 10SR), and the O2 is bulk, and the scrubbers are integrated units for which part of the price discount is turning in the old canisters (they don't GIVE them, they insist on swapping them), and it's a big nasty megacorp scam.

In that case I assume you charged that flat fee per ship of so and so many staterooms, whether the staterooms were occupied or not, since charging per occupant implies that it is possible to get a partial refill. Which, incidentally, is what the rules say you can (you pay Cr2000 per crew and passenger, nothing for empty staterooms; with double occupancy you pay two times Cr2000). So your solution only works if you're willing to ignore the OTU. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but it does not refute my opinion that the rules about life support costs are self-contradictory, or at the very least inadequate.


Hans

 

[Whipsnade]

Maybe not, but what part of the existing canon about the OTU would have to be changed if we suddenly found out that the IN was moving battleriders about by Superluminal Realspace Drive?

Hans,

Quite a bit actually.

Remember those odd lo-tech, lo-pop systems in the FFW boardgame that somehow support hundreds of SDBs? Your proposed drive may explain how the Imperium got all those SDBs there and how those SDBs are supplied. When you're delivering basic things like boot, beans, and bullets moving them cheaply is far more important than moving them quickly.

If you Slow/Cheap drive is the reason those odd SDB deployments occur, why don't we then see more military and economic applications? A Slow/Cheap drive would make moving pre-positioned fuel into various deep space gaps much more economical because fuel and other bulk items could be shipped at much less cost.

We know very little about the composition and organization of the Imperium's combat squadrons, but we know a durn sight less about the composition and organization of the auxiliary units.

We needn't know anything about a squadron's composition to have seen the effects of that squadron's use. We know the 214th Fleet smashed the Sacnotian Fleet in only 90 days towards the end of the Fifth Frontier War. We know nothing about the squadrons composing those fleets or the ships composing those squadrons, but we do know one fleet beat the other relatively quickly.

The existence of a Slow/Cheap drive would allow for the economical delivery of fuel to deep space "calibration" points. Having fuel move more calibration points means more people would be able to create and use them. Traces and clusters could then be more easily linked to Mains and other trade routes. That, in turn, would be something we would have seen in canon even if the ships using the Slow/Cheap drive remained invisible.


Regards,
Bill

 

[rancke]

Remember those odd lo-tech, lo-pop systems in the FFW boardgame that somehow support hundreds of SDBs? Your proposed drive may explain how the Imperium got all those SDBs there and how those SDBs are supplied. When you're delivering basic things like boot, beans, and bullets moving them cheaply is far more important than moving them quickly.

And the change would be?

If you Slow/Cheap drive is the reason those odd SDB deployments occur, why don't we then see more military and economic applications? A Slow/Cheap drive would make moving pre-positioned fuel into various deep space gaps much more economical because fuel and other bulk items could be shipped at much less cost.

But since we don't know how much pre-positioning of fuel that takes place in the OTU, what's the change?

We needn't know anything about a squadron's composition to have seen the effects of that squadron's use. We know the 214th Fleet smashed the Sacnotian Fleet in only 90 days towards the end of the Fifth Frontier War. We know nothing about the squadrons composing those fleets or the ships composing those squadrons, but we do know one fleet beat the other relatively quickly.

I don't get your drift at all.

The existence of a Slow/Cheap drive would allow for the economical delivery of fuel to deep space "calibration" points. Having fuel move more calibration points means more people would be able to create and use them. Traces and clusters could then be more easily linked to Mains and other trade routes. That, in turn, would be something we would have seen in canon even if the ships using the Slow/Cheap drive remained invisible.

Do you have some detailed information about how much fuel is being delivered to calibration points in the OTU? If not, how can you say that a cheaper way to deliver it would result in bigger deliveries? Can you point to any specific canonical text that would have to be changed to account for succh a drive?


Hans

 

[Whipsnade]

If not, how can you say that a cheaper way to deliver it would result in bigger deliveries?

Hans,

Did you actually read that before you posted it? Shipping costs drop but deliveries don't increase? Does that make any economic sense to you at all?

If the Slow/Cheap drive is roughly half the cost of standard jump drive, my mortgage drops by roughly half too. With a cheaper mortgage, I can charge cheaper freight rates for those shippers who don't care whether their cargo is delivered in a week or a month. With cheaper freight rates we'll see more cargoes of those things which were previously economically marginal (or worse) to ship. It needn't drop by a half either. It could be a third, a fourth, a fifth, or a tenth. A cheaper mortgage means cheaper freight rates.

We don't need to see any explicit examples of fuel shipping rates in canon because the economics in canon already makes those shipments unprofitable. We've only seen calibrations points in canon when a fuel supply already exists, i.e. ice body or comet, when shipping the fuel acts like a loss leader for profits earned elsewhere; i.e. Arekut's deep space point in TTA, or when profit doesn't enter the picture, military and paramilitary purposes. This is a case of the dog barking during the night, my friend. The absence of any yips, yelps, and growls provides just as much information as a cacophony of yaps, barks, and howls.

If you change freight costs the economic picture changes and, with the role economics play in Traveller any change in economics is a fundamental change.


Regards,
Bill

 

[rancke]

Did you actually read that before you posted it? Shipping costs drop but deliveries don't increase? Does that make any economic sense to you at all?

We don't know what the size of the deliveries are, so what difference would the retconning of a Superluminal Realspace Drive make to the existing canon? Not the rules, the background information?

If the Slow/Cheap drive is roughly half the cost of standard jump drive, my mortgage drops by roughly half too. With a cheaper mortgage, I can charge cheaper freight rates for those shippers who don't care whether their cargo is delivered in a week or a month. With cheaper freight rates we'll see more cargoes of those things which were previously economically marginal (or worse) to ship. It needn't drop by a half either. It could be a third, a fourth, a fifth, or a tenth. A cheaper mortgage means cheaper freight rates.

So it does. But what difference ewould that make to the existing canon? Go on, point me to a concrete paragraph or two that would be invalidated.

We don't need to see any explicit examples of fuel shipping rates in canon because the economics in canon already makes those shipments unprofitable. We've only seen calibrations points in canon when a fuel supply already exists, i.e. ice body or comet, when shipping the fuel acts like a loss leader for profits earned elsewhere; i.e. Arekut's deep space point in TTA, or when profit doesn't enter the picture, military and paramilitary purposes. This is a case of the dog barking during the night, my friend. The absence of any yips, yelps, and growls provides just as much information as a cacophony of yaps, barks, and howls.

Except that existing jump technology would already make several cheaper routes that made use of deep space fuel depots economic, yet we haven't hear anything about such stations either. The dogs may be barking all over the place, only we haven't heard about them because no one has gotten around to mentioning it to us yet.

If you change freight costs the economic picture changes and, with the role economics play in Traveller any change in economics is a fundamental change.

First part I agree with. Second part is just an unsubstantiated claim so far, if by 'fundamantal' you mean 'neccesitates revision of existing canonical background material'.

Edit: To elucidate: I'm not saying that the presence or absence of a SRD wouldn't make a big difference to transport patterns. It would. It absolutely would. A detailed description of transportation with an SRD would be very different from a detailed description of transportation without an SRD.

What I'm saying is that no such description exists in canon yet. There's secondary evidence, sure, but since such secondary evidence was not based on a detailed analysis of transportation in a universe without an SRD, but mostly grabbed out of thin air, such secondary evidence does not necessarily preclude the retcon introduction of an SRD. Some of it might well by pure happenstance contradict the existence of such a drive, but I'm not aware of any. If there is any secondary evidence that would require a major retcon with fundamental changes to the OTU we know (rather than a few cosmetic changes), I either haven't come across it or failed to grasp its significance. (Obviously I'm talking about background information about the OTU, not shipbuilding rules).



Hans

 

[mike wightman]

It is already canon to move stuff though normal space at near c.

3.27 years per hex isn't that bad for an automated ship to haul bulk goods.

 

[Peter Schutze]

Why can't OTU jumpdrives be the most efficient compromise choice ? As long as the drawbacks all easily outweigh the OTU version they are likely to be niche-in-time solutions that get abandoned in favour of the OTU drives

"The Vargr, Hivers, and Solomani all developed variations of the standard drive and all junked those variations"

My understanding has always been that they all developed the standard drive with the only real difference being that their overall TL may have been different when it was discovered …. An artefact of single TL ratings traveller uses

I've always swept that under the carpet as a "0.1% difference here or there isnt worth worrying about on the standardised tables"

 

[shadowdragon]

It is already canon to move stuff though normal space at near c.

what is the mass of a single h2 atom moving at near c? and how many of those atoms can starship armor handle impacting on the nose before structure damage begins?

curious minds want to know

 

[Magnus von Thornwood]

Ramscoops.

what is the mass of a single h2 atom moving at near c? and how many of those atoms can starship armor handle impacting on the nose before structure damage begins?

curious minds want to know

As I recall, they are called magnetic ramscoops and they funnel all that tasty H and its cousins into the fuel purification system and then into the tanks and used in the burns and occasional course correction.

Or so I heard once...

 

[saundby]

Inertialess Drives

As to alternate drives, I used Doc Smith style inertialess drives IMTU for almost 30 years. Basically, if you eliminate inertia then the speed of light isn't the limit.

The inertialess "drive" doesn't actually propel the ship. It simply removes the retarding effects of mass. "Projectors" generate thrust. According to Smith's books, they are reaction drives constructed so that the exhaust is not free of inertia (IIRC, there's a description in either First Lensman or Gray Lensman. I'll see if I can turn it up.) When the inertialess drive is turned off, the craft still has the same intrinsic velocity as before it was turned on. This requires the use of reaction drives for velocity-matching the destination.

The speed attainable using the inertialess drive is limited only by the density of the interstellar medium and the efficiency with which inertia is removed. With near-perfect drives (Bergenholms) the books give a speed of about 90pc/hour in intra-galactic space. A speed about a thousand times faster is claimed for extragalactic travel.

I used a slower drive, operationally more in line with Nevian or Cleveland/Rodebush drives from the book Triplanetary. Their speeds in the book are on the order of 18pc/hour. I used a much lower Traveller-like speed of about a parsec and a half per week IMTU for a standard issue ship. Different quality drives ranged from about half this to about 5x this, with both the inertialess drive and the force available from the projectors affecting velocity.

I generated nebulae as "terrain" on my space maps, much like Stellar Conquest, which affected travel speed to different degrees based on the density of the ISM for that hex.

Ships with inertialess drives stay in normal space. Density of dust creates "terrain" in space. Dealing with intrinsic velocity adjustments and atmospheres has a slowing effect at origins and destinations similar to the 100 diameter limit. (Airless rocks become more valuable as bases.) Pirates and other rogue operators have a way to operate, and plenty of space to do it in as well as "choke points" to work, thanks to the "terrain."

 

[Icosahedron]

what is the mass of a single h2 atom moving at near c? and how many of those atoms can starship armor handle impacting on the nose before structure damage begins?

curious minds want to know

Mass increase is negligible until you get very near to c.

Without doing the maths, I reckon if you're happy to take maybe 3.28 years for transit instead of 3.27, your atoms are just atoms.

 

[aramis]

as you approach .25C, those "just atoms" knock out secondary radiation, as they count as alpha particles... as you get faster, those "still" atoms become equivalent to sanding the hull with uranium... looks ugly, removes the paint, and makes you glow and your children non-viable.

 

[mike wightman]

Except the CT m drive also shields ships from harmful radiation - also canon

 

[Peter Schutze]

>what is the mass of a single h2 atom moving at near c?

You probably mean the energy of impact since the total energy is important in a collision

the energy is going to be disgusting when that atom stops regardless of whether its a hydrogen or hydrogen (deutrium) atom

remember the C^2 part of e=mc^2 is about 90 with 15 zero's after it

it should work out to be a hell of a lot more than the MW or Gigawatt lasers in traveller combat

the conversion of mass to energy formula is
m=e/c^2 if you really want to work out what effective mass and velocity that laser has in comparison to your atom .... "effective" weight since photons don't have a mass only energy (ie the gigawatt rating) which is why they can move at C

 

[Icosahedron]

remember the C^2 part of e=mc^2 is about 90 with 15 zero's after it.

True, but the m part is about 20 with 28 zeros before it.

And that's about as much figuring as I have time for.

it should work out to be a hell of a lot more than the MW or Gigawatt lasers in traveller combat

Dunno about that, I'll let somebody else figure it out. I'll just use the jump drives and rest my brain.

 

[raccoon]

Oxygen tankage Cr 20 per 6 hours (TTB 107, Oxygen tank refill), or Cr80 per day x14 days (the maximum expendature for the KCr2) is Cr1120, less 10% for bulk, Cr1008.

Preserved food: Cr20 per day (TTB 109), less 10% for bulk, Cr18 * 14 days, Cr252. CO2 scrubber (LiOH) canisters; call them Cr4 per day (ebay shows small canisters, about 1/4 the size of the 4 day apollo ones, for about US$20; a few surplus ones for $5). Cr56 for 14 days.

that's Cr1428.

Add cleaning supplies, bedding, shampoo, and delivery... plus some nitrogen replacement...

And sales tax...

Clea

You don't need to buy air on any planet with a breathable atmosphere all you need is a compressor. You have cut your life support costs by half on most planets you can land on and made it worth paying higher berthing costs for planetry landings.