New Colony Construction

[whartung]

I'd say the big question is What tools and equipment did you come with? That pretty much determines what you can and cannot accomplish on the colony world in the immediate aftermath of landing. That, in turn, would be determined by the survey results of the planet.

The colonization effort would entail preparing properly for the task of building permanent shelter, so it would seem reasonable that they'd bring appropriate equipment with them. Lumber is an issue in that you can't really just cut it and start building, unless you brought a kiln to dry it. Not a really good idea to make structures out of very green wood, and drying takes some time.

Power generation depends on the planet again. For initial power, you'd want something reasonably reliable and quick to get into service. Solar and wind might be good early choices as they work for years without need for more resources.

This is a universe with ubiquitous, commodity fusion power. We take ICE motors for granted today, that's the status of fusion in Traveller, without the actual fueling issue. What's NOT talked about much is the "cold start" requirements of a fusion power plant. Something is necessary to give it the initial spark.

The hard part is bringing enough cable to power everything, but all of the power solutions have that problem.

 

[Enoki]

The colonization effort would entail preparing properly for the task of building permanent shelter, so it would seem reasonable that they'd bring appropriate equipment with them. Lumber is an issue in that you can't really just cut it and start building, unless you brought a kiln to dry it. Not a really good idea to make structures out of very green wood, and drying takes some time.

This is a universe with ubiquitous, commodity fusion power. We take ICE motors for granted today, that's the status of fusion in Traveller, without the actual fueling issue. What's NOT talked about much is the "cold start" requirements of a fusion power plant. Something is necessary to give it the initial spark.

The hard part is bringing enough cable to power everything, but all of the power solutions have that problem.

Green lumber is fine for house and small building construction. It'd be better if you can dry it some at least, but even green it will work because when you finish a wall the whole is dimensionally stable. It isn't as if they were building a ship out of it.

I'd think on the power issue, that a small colony would keep it simple. Solar panels, wind turbines, a generator that will run off something you can procure locally in sufficient quantity-- a coal seam, wood with a boiler or wood gas, a methane well, etc. You want something that isn't going to take massive engineering effort to set up and then run.
In the short run, if you had a landing boat / craft equipped with a generating plant, that would be a great choice. So long as you have the means to refuel it, it provides the power in a pre-packaged unit that requires little engineering to set up and get going.

 

[Condottiere]

Mini fusion reactor, Mongosian tweaked one can either get you a cheap one, or an energy dense one, with minimum one energy point output, so sub tonne.

 

[whulorigan]

Mini fusion reactor, Mongosian tweaked one can either get you a cheap one, or an energy dense one, with minimum one energy point output, so sub tonne.

Or in T5, Fusion-Plus modules (which run on distilled water at about several liters per yer consumption rate) @ TL12+.

 

[robject]

The colonization effort would entail preparing properly for the task of building permanent shelter, so it would seem reasonable that they'd bring appropriate equipment with them. Lumber is an issue in that you can't really just cut it and start building, unless you brought a kiln to dry it. Not a really good idea to make structures out of very green wood, and drying takes some time.

Cargo drops ahead of the colony. We would want to use local material as much as possible, but for anything lacking, we'd need cargo drops.

This is a universe with ubiquitous, commodity fusion power.

Maybe FusionPlus has a hand-crank. "Just turn it 1,000,000,000 times..."

The hard part is bringing enough cable to power everything, but all of the power solutions have that problem.

Make it a broadcast power generator -- although every solution has problems.

Hmm, maybe some colony housing has a "power wall" -- you don't ship all the building materials, just the power wall. It "supplies power" in the manner befitting the colony's bent and the world's resources. Then you locally build the rest of the structure around it with a rammed-earth machine or something equivalent.

 

[whulorigan]

Maybe FusionPlus has a hand-crank. "Just turn it 1,000,000,000 times..."

You're behind the times, Robject. That's what the hamster and the exercise-wheel are for.
(And you can always combine it with GeDeCo's Cat-on-Treadmill Performance Module).

 

[Spinward Flow]

Makertech is a TL=10 advancement ... and it only gets better from there.

Shove (the right kind of) atoms and fusion power in one end ... get finished product out the other end, factory production style.
Scale up to meet needs of a colony startup using robots and sophont supervisors to keep the whole thing running.

Once the colony is self-sustaining, the facility can either be repurposed, extracted for use elsewhere or decommissioned.

 

[Condottiere]

My variant is early fusion, basic technological level eight.

 

[aramis]

Groups of (8?) homes will share a 14kwh, 17 liter, pocket-fusion generator plus some ambient power like solar.

Two disagreement with this:

1. kwh is the wrong unit; 14 kWH is 1.75 kW per home for 1 hour. Gas engines do better. Unit should be just plain kiloWatts (kW).
2. Given the canonical scale efficiencies, the 14kl 256 mW is more likely to be in use.... you only need 2 for a small colony, they're the typical size for ACS ship plant "jugs¹" - spares can be obtained from a variety of sources both above and below board.

¹: Jugs was a reference to individual cylinders on radial aircraft engines... a number of engines of different sizes were identical jugs on a different frame; I assume a similar effect given the granularity of the JDrive sizes...

 

[kilemall]

A major issue

Two disagreement with this:

1. kwh is the wrong unit; 14 kWH is 1.75 kW per home for 1 hour. Gas engines do better. Unit should be just plain kiloWatts (kW).
2. Given the canonical scale efficiencies, the 14kl 256 mW is more likely to be in use.... you only need 2 for a small colony, they're the typical size for ACS ship plant "jugs¹" - spares can be obtained from a variety of sources both above and below board.

¹: Jugs was a reference to individual cylinders on radial aircraft engines... a number of engines of different sizes were identical jugs on a different frame; I assume a similar effect given the granularity of the JDrive sizes...

So just dump A power plants near water sources?

 

[BackworldTraveller]

You'd, surely, need three as one will be down for maintenance at any given time, and you'd need fuel tankage as a priority along with associated fuel purification.

But that principle seems sound and generates the equivalent of 30+ to 90+ modern wind turbines with nowhere near the fluctuations in output.

 

[Grav_Moped]

You're behind the times, Robject. That's what the hamster and the exercise-wheel are for.
(And you can always combine it with GeDeCo's Cat-on-Treadmill Performance Module).

Cat with dorsal buttered-toast antigravity/perpetual motion module.

Cat always lands on feet.
Buttered toast always lands butter-side down.
Stalemate.

 

[Condottiere]

The problem is, the cat might be dead.

So half the time, it would be a dead cat bounce.

 

[coliver988]

The problem is, the cat might be dead.

So half the time, it would be a dead cat bounce.

only if you observe the cat - make sure the device is shielded from all observations and it will work forever.

 

[Timerover51]

One thing to consider is why the colony is being established, and by whom. Australia was originally establish as a convict settlement, with the forced settlers expected to build their own housing out of the local materials. You could also have a colony set up by a group such as the Amish or Old Order Mennonites, looking for a low Tech level existence away from modernity.

For that matter, look at some of the first colonists in North America, the Pilgrims and later the Puritan fleeing religious persecution. Those were not government sponsored, but start by private groups. Are people willing to leave a settled existence for the risks of a new colony?

 

[aramis]

A major issue

So just dump A power plants near water sources?

Essentially... but I'll note that the jug size makes a B or two A's... because

You'd, surely, need three as one will be down for maintenance at any given time, and you'd need fuel tankage as a priority along with associated fuel purification.

But that principle seems sound and generates the equivalent of 30+ to 90+ modern wind turbines with nowhere near the fluctuations in output.

Nope, only 2 are needed. The actual rate of 1 engineer working 40 hr/wk supports 35 tons of drive, and the bk2 apparent jug size is 3Td.... (3/35)*40 is approximately 3.43 hours (3 hr 26 min) per week per jug, plus an hour & 9 minutes for each control chunk (1Td).
A third jug is desirable, but far from needed.

Note that, in a Bk5 universe, where 1Td is the minimum size, and the quantum size of PP, hence also the jug size. So an A plant would be overkill...and each 1 td jug is 1:08:35... Noting that a 1 Td TL9 jug is "only" 85 MW...

For a stationary site, there's no strongly compelling reason to use the smaller Mr Fusion units when there will certainly be functional second-hand jugs salvaged from larger damaged ships... efficiencies of production and distribution by using standard drive plants makes for easier maintenance, more individualls allready skilled

 

[Condottiere]

Engineering used to require a minimum one tonne, or fourteen cubic metres, per drive or power plant.

There's lots of options, depending on the local environmental conditions: wind mills, tidal power, geothermal, hydro electric.

Now, I'm a little vague on the Teslasque wireless power transmission, but you hook that up to a cheap and easily maintainable fusion reactor, you save on the wiring and infrastructure.

 

[whartung]

Make it a broadcast power generator -- although every solution has problems.

That...is a really bad idea.

Goldstone is one of the Deep Space Network sites. It's has a large dish with a lot of power to send itty-bitty bits out to the Vjers and the like.

It's on a military base with restricted airspace so that they don't have to worry about roasting some passing airplane with 50MWs of "turn left at the next asteroid" messages.

Near me, we have high tension wires all around. You can easily see them as there's vast stretches of empty land beneath them (save nurseries, apparently plants are ok).

We don't let folks live underneath these things.

Great way to light up lights, tho!

 

[robject]

That...is a really bad idea.

Oh I'm sure they've overcome things like electromagnetic radiation a long time ago.

 

[Drew]

That...is a really bad idea.

Goldstone is one of the Deep Space Network sites. It's has a large dish with a lot of power to send itty-bitty bits out to the Vjers and the like.

It's on a military base with restricted airspace so that they don't have to worry about roasting some passing airplane with 50MWs of "turn left at the next asteroid" messages.

Near me, we have high tension wires all around. You can easily see them as there's vast stretches of empty land beneath them (save nurseries, apparently plants are ok).

We don't let folks live underneath these things.

Great way to light up lights, tho!

Actually, when I was stationed at NTC, there were constant warnings about going too near to the tracking station. No one ever said if they found any fried migratory bird nearby. However, there are constant reports of fried birds near the solar array.