Solar Panels

[eklypse0]

If I remember correctly, the original Traveller game had solar panels as part of its ships design systems.. Anyone have the stats to bring them into the T20 game?

Shain

 

[Tom Schoene]

I think you're mistaken. Solar panels were definitely not part of either the Book 2 or High Guard design sequences. They would not be powerful enough to power Traveller spaceships.

 

[eklypse0]

Let me remember. I think it was based on surface area of the ship. It was a small amount of power per area level, mostly for emergincy power.

I was pretty sure it was in traveller. Maybe in the second edition of the game though instead of the original.

Shain

 

[far-trader]

I was working on this a week ago but my filing system is such that I can't find the notes now

I think the earliest solar power rules shows up is in MegaTraveller. A quick guesstimate/conversion from that to T20 would be about 1 EP (T20 ship design EP, not vehicle ep) per dT of solar battery, costing Mcr 2.0, and requiring 1400 square meters of surface area for the collectors, at TL 12+. To find available surface area for solar power multiply the dT by 1400 and find the square root. So each dT of ship allows 1 square meter of solar panels. That performance is for the habitable region of a star (later systems embellished), dropping off significantly beyond that (to 1% of that IIRC).

I'll have to track down or rework my numbers based on the vehicle system and batteries later for a more accurate translation so take the above with fair warning that it is a quick and dirty, very rounded, estimate.

 

[sinbadsam]

Originally posted by Shain Edge:
If I remember correctly, the original Traveller game had solar panels as part of its ships design systems.. Anyone have the stats to bring them into the T20 game?

Shain

No It was the "Annic Nova" that used solor sails, Issue 1 of the Journal of the Traveller Aide Society (JTAS). Now rendered "non-Canon".

One can figure the energy required to jump using solor sails by using the BLack Globe energy absorbtion rules. Ie taking the Jump drive rating multiplying by a factor gives the number/tons of capacitors that can be used to absorb excess energy from the Black Globe. IIRC that is. EP=250 Megawatts. I had this all factored out at one time, long ago.

 

[Uncle Bob]

Whatever the rules work out to, the available solar energy at the earth is about 1 KW/m2. That means between 0.5-1.5 KW/m2 in any stars habitable zone. 1960s solar cellswere bout 10% efficient. In the last year or so a breakthough may allow 50% efficiency.

So to get 1 MW from 80% efficient (TL 9+?) solar cells at the orbit of Mars requires 2500 m2 of collecter.

 

[trader jim]

question?...Did Traveller miss something? when Traveller came out way back when, solor panels AND
solor chargeable BATTERYS were on the market, i belive a lot of solor technology could have been used and develoved in the game, and solor rechareable batterys could have been used also, EXAMPLE...Solor Powered Pocket transister Radios, Solor powered calculators, solor powered watches, i remember these. Did we miss a playable technology???

And why was the Anic Nova DE-Canonized????

 

[Uncle Bob]

Back in 1977 solar cells were expensive toys, For about $10 (2001 equivalent) you could get a kit from Edmunds Scientific that could power a 3" fan in yhe noon-day sund. I didn't see a solar battery charger until the mid-eighties,

I believe Annic Nova was de-cannonized when it was realized that it would take months, possibly years to charge up for a jump.

 

[sinbadsam]

Originally posted by Uncle Bob:
Back in 1977 solar cells were expensive toys, For about $10 (2001 equivalent) you could get a kit from Edmunds Scientific that could power a 3" fan in yhe noon-day sund. I didn't see a solar battery charger until the mid-eighties,

I believe Annic Nova was de-cannonized when it was realized that it would take months, possibly years to charge up for a jump.

IIRC it not due to the lenght of time to charge, but that that if only energy was needed to jump then why are the jump drive plants being used for other uses like weapons ie spinal mounts. Also why as hydrogen being used? It opened up a very large can of worms that the Powers That Be really did nto want to deal with.

 

[trader jim]

Well sombody will have to "deal with it" because if you read most of the science journals, And Sci-Fi. you will notice that in real life we might be using 2 or 3 different power plants for space travel. and a ton of new technologys.

 

[vegascat]

ANNIC NOVA was published as Double Aventure 1, 1980 by GDW.

The canopy is described as about 1 kilometer diameter and takes 1D weeks to charge the acumulators for jump. The ship is of unknown alien manufacture. The jump drives may be more energy efficient than normal tech.
The hydrogen used for jumps has been described as a charged shroud protecting the people from adverse effects of jumps. The hull may provide that protection.
The jump pods are J2 and J3, but are each about 27dTons, or about 4% of the 600 dTons of ship, sufficient for J3.
All of this is not to far from canon, but is great for making mice out of players.

The players know what happens if you jump without the hydrogen discharge, or do they?

If you want examples of hard to explane tech, take a look at anything originating from Grandfather.

 

[bromdenlong]

Originally posted by Uncle Bob:
Back in 1977 solar cells were expensive toys, For about $10 (2001 equivalent) you could get a kit from Edmunds Scientific that could power a 3" fan in yhe noon-day sund. I didn't see a solar battery charger until the mid-eighties,

I believe Annic Nova was de-cannonized when it was realized that it would take months, possibly years to charge up for a jump.

Why not simply posit that the ship was highly heat- and radiation-resistant and have it recharge much closer to the star?

the thing I can't stand about Annic Nova is that it can barely maneuver, and only with its shuttles attached. It's also underarmed. The only thing it seems obviously useful for, to me, is exploring uncharted systems. If there aren't any hydrogen sources available in-system, no problem. It would seem especially well-suited for seeking J-4 or J-5 bridges across rifts.

 

[Golan2072]

Would someone please provide us with CT stats for solar panels? All I need is the power output (MW, preferrably), the tonnage and the cost per TL.

 

[far-trader]

MegaTraveller(tm) Solar cell values per square meter:
</font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">TL MW KL MT MCr
6 .001 .01 .020 .010
7 .002 .01 .018 .008
8 .004 .01 .016 .006
9 .012 .01 .014 .005
10 .027 .01 .012 .004
11 .045 .01 .010 .003
12+ .081 .01 .008 .002</pre>[/QUOTE]Table from Referee's Manual copied here under fair use guidelines.

These are the values for complete solar cells, not to be confused with just a solar panel apparently. I think the idea is that a solar cell includes the solar panel (the square meters part) that collects the light energy, and the solar converter (the heavy bulky part above, volume and mass) to change the energy to a useful form.

Further the performance listed above should probably be for the inner zone of a star, with a x0.1 output for the habitable zone and a x0.01 output for the outer zone. These figures are my old margin notes but (loosely) compare to the TNE FF&S numbers

 

[Golan2072]

Many thanks! May I have your permission to include a derivative (in LBB2 dtons/MCr and in LBB8 KW/L/KG) this in my upcoming "LBB2 Expanded" article on Stellar Reaches? Or is it MT? (and then, quoting the table would still probably be "proper use", as IIRC you are allowed to quote one or two paragraphs of a copyrighted material; this will be in context of my Space Station and Escape Pod designs).

Also, how do you convert KL to dton? 1dton=14KL? (14 cubic meters)?

Also, I assume that the volume is mostly for storage when folded...

 

[Rossoneill]

You could take the solar panels from T4 FF&S and convert to Ct if you wanted to .

 

[mike wightman]

Originally posted by Employee 2-4601:
Also, how do you convert KL to dton? 1dton=14KL? (14 cubic meters)?

Yep, that's how it's done.
Unless using MT which uses 13.5kl per displacement ton.
But for a simple conversion to CT it's close enough

Also, I assume that the volume is mostly for storage when folded...

Sounds reasonable enough to me - again due to the lack of crunch in CT ship design.

Although as Dan says, perhaps the numbers should be doubled for folding arrays as is done in FF&S

 

[far-trader]

Originally posted by Employee 2-4601:
Many thanks! May I have your permission to include a derivative (in LBB2 dtons/MCr and in LBB8 KW/L/KG) this in my upcoming "LBB2 Expanded" article on Stellar Reaches? Or is it MT? (and then, quoting the table would still probably be "proper use", as IIRC you are allowed to quote one or two paragraphs of a copyrighted material; this will be in context of my Space Station and Escape Pod designs).

Also, how do you convert KL to dton? 1dton=14KL? (14 cubic meters)?

Also, I assume that the volume is mostly for storage when folded...

You're welcome Employee 2-4601, I also think it should be fine to use under the fair use guidelines. And you may use my own notes as well if you like. Not knowing that was your purpose I skipped the lower TL's when posting last night. I've updated the earlier post and included a couple more notes.

Sigg's agreement with you on the coversion is perhaps off a bit This being MT I feel it should be converted as 13.5kl to 1dton

As for the volume, no, the way I understand it the volume and mass are mostly for the converter (and presumably in larger arrays, in part, the wiring). The actual collector part is the square meter part and has negligable volume and mass*. A folding array in TNE FF&S doubled the volume, mass and cost of the whole so you might use that as the requirement to add the machinery for that.

* Early TLs would require mounting on a firm surface and protection from elements which could add to the cost, volume and mass but I wouldn't sweat it, they are also very fragile. Later TLs are flexible and much more durable.

 

[mike wightman]

MT, of course

I forgot that they are included there.

I thought you'd got them from FF&S - thanks to the thread about fusion pistols I've got it on my mind

And yes, digging out FF&S it says costs, weights etc should be doubled for a folding array, but then the original numbers from MT are a bit different to those in FF&S.

 

[far-trader]

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
And yes, digging out FF&S it says costs, weights etc should be doubled for a folding array, but then the original numbers from MT are a bit different to those in FF&S.

Quite a bit different

I recall trying to wrap my head around working out the comparison when I first got my hands on FF&S and nearly going off the deep end

I never did get it figured out but it seemed the ones in MT were better by a lot. I also did some comparison of the FF&S numbers to real photovoltaics and found (if I did the math right) that they were somewhat less efficient than reality at equal TL.