TL breakthroughs.

[Timerover51]

While this is not a very high-Tech breakthrough, do any of the design sequences in various Traveller rules make provision for star shells being fired from artillery pieces or mortars? The British were using them in 1897 in India, which to my way of thinking places them at Tech Level 4, and I think that somewhere I may have a drawing of a star shell intended to be fire from a mortar in the American Civil War. I would have to check on that, however.

 

[SanDragon]

Semi, kinda, sorta lobbed an answer to this in another thread.

 

[McPerth]

The GUJDE says it's power alone that's the issue, and that the fuel is used in a high power, low efficiency over-clock of the main powerplant. The tonnage of the JD is mostly just the stuff to convert that power to jump.

Then anti-mater jump drives will be allowed?

As I've heard, this has been a subject of quite a discussion...

 

[aramis]

Then anti-mater jump drives will be allowed?

As I've heard, this has been a subject of quite a discussion...

At sufficiently high TL's, yes. Which is quite different from MT and TNE.

 

[BytePro]

Of course, at such higher TLs, anti-matter users are more likely to just use their warp drives (see BytePro duck and weave) :devil:

[Humor only - no knowledge of T5 rules!]

 

[coldwar]

Mmmm, nice. Got a couple things to add myself.

With Jump Drives, i have always done it as, the power needed for jumping is contained with in the Jump Drive itself. Though Some power is directed from the power plant to it, to kick start its reactions, and hold it with in safe parameters.
Aka, The Jump drive is turned on by send power from the Plant to it. Soon as that happens the Jump Drive drinks like hell till it has gained enough power to release the needed energy to jump. Once jumped, it uses remaining fuel to maintain the jump field, whilst the power plant is still redirecting power to it just to keep the thing turned on and controlled.

Another thing I'd add is, for me you would need a number of breakthroughs to jump up a tech level as in my eyes it is completely viable that a tech 8 world would have some tech 9 designs working already. But those breakthroughs haven't pushed them over the edge in to becoming classed as a tech 9 world.

For me the tech level represents the worlds general understanding of the tech they use not the tech they are actually able to produce.
One way to put that is, is the tech commonly used in day to day life with limited understanding of how it works, or is it just used by a couple companies/governments/people.

 

[aramis]

Of course, at such higher TLs, anti-matter users are more likely to just use their warp drives (see BytePro duck and weave) :devil:

[Humor only - no knowledge of T5 rules!]

No, they use their TL=WayTooHigh skip projector to put BytePro into the wrong sector...

The new FTL drives in T5 are related to jump... and do some really fun stuff...

 

[DangerousThing]

Actually, it is the Annic Nova adventure that convinced me that the power requirements for jump were totally off the wall, so I have cut back drastically on fuel required. The main need now is fuel for maneuver drives, not jump. For ship's power, a ton of liquid Hydrogen goes a very long way.

I also keep thinking about something like the Annic Nova being standard for colony of Droyne, and favored non-Droyne have a chance to get one.

As I see it, a jump drive needs a lot of power very quickly in order to initiate jump. A starship's fusion drive is designed to do this. Some other power sources can't do this. So IMTU I use extremely efficient batteries to provide the power or I use a different drive.

 

[rancke]

The GUJDE says it's power alone that's the issue, and that the fuel is used in a high power, low efficiency over-clock of the main powerplant. The tonnage of the JD is mostly just the stuff to convert that power to jump.

So no explanation of the huge discrepancy between the power a solar sail can gather in 1-6 weeks and the power a fusion power plant can generate in 20 minutes?


Hans

 

[warwizard]

So no explanation of the huge discrepancy between the power a solar sail can gather in 1-6 weeks and the power a fusion power plant can generate in 20 minutes?


Hans

99.9% inefficency due to trying to keep the heat generated pumped overboard, I'm assumming you're boiling damn near all that liquid LH2 and dumping it overboard, along with running your heat sinks up to max temperatures (running refrigeration systems at max load and so forth).

I just go with the idea of storing the energy needed in an accumulator that is much better suited to providing a surge of power than any kind of power plant though I could see an orion drive being used to power a jump (talk about a hazardous, fatefull, and uncertant task!)

 

[rancke]

99.9% inefficency due to trying to keep the heat generated pumped overboard, I'm assumming you're boiling damn near all that liquid LH2 and dumping it overboard, along with running your heat sinks up to max temperatures (running refrigeration systems at max load and so forth).

But why? Assuming for purposes of argument that the only way to get the necessary power in 20 minutes is to use a 99.9% inefficient fusion power plant[*], that explanation presupposes accumulators that has to be filled in 20 minutes. But the accumulators of the Annic Nova can be filled over a period of six weeks; obviously they can keep the necessary charge over a period of six weeks. So why generate the necessary power in 20 minutes in the first place? Why not have a more efficient power plant (say, a steam engine[**] ) running for a few hours instead? Or why not have the necessary power provided by the starport power grid and kept stored in the accumulators for the 6-8 hours it takes to move out to the jump limit?

[*] Which sounds pretty iffy to me if the amount of power needed is as low as those solar collectors imply, but let that slide.

[**] OK, I don't know how exactly how much solar energy you can collect in a week, but I believe it's a relatively low figure. Perhaps a steam engine wouldn't be able to equal it, but something a good deal less massive than a 99.9% inefficient fusion power plant processing tens of tons of liquid hydrogen should be able to do it. Especially if it has several hours to do it.​

Hans

 

[Vladika]

...Why not have a more efficient power plant (say, a steam engine[**] ) running for a few hours instead? Or why not have the necessary power provided by the starport power grid and kept stored in the accumulators for the 6-8 hours it takes to move out to the jump limit?
Hans

Come on Hans what are you looking for? Logic?

I like the steam engine...I wonder if Marc would license Traveller Steam Punk: The Last Generation?

 

[rancke]

Come on Hans what are you looking for? Logic?

I'm looking for self-consistency and verisimilitude (not necessarily realism), IMO the second and third most important feature for roleplaying games. (The most important is gamability).


Hans

 

[Vladika]

I'm looking for self-consistency and verisimilitude (not necessarily realism), IMO the second and third most important feature for roleplaying games. (The most important is gamability).


Hans

I am in total agreement with you. I still like the Steam Engineer comment though.:devil:

 

[atpollard]

But why? Assuming for purposes of argument that the only way to get the necessary power in 20 minutes is to use a 99.9% inefficient fusion power plant[*], that explanation presupposes accumulators that has to be filled in 20 minutes. But the accumulators of the Annic Nova can be filled over a period of six weeks; obviously they can keep the necessary charge over a period of six weeks. So why generate the necessary power in 20 minutes in the first place? Why not have a more efficient power plant (say, a steam engine[**] ) running for a few hours instead? Or why not have the necessary power provided by the starport power grid and kept stored in the accumulators for the 6-8 hours it takes to move out to the jump limit?

[*] Which sounds pretty iffy to me if the amount of power needed is as low as those solar collectors imply, but let that slide.

[**] OK, I don't know how exactly how much solar energy you can collect in a week, but I believe it's a relatively low figure. Perhaps a steam engine wouldn't be able to equal it, but something a good deal less massive than a 99.9% inefficient fusion power plant processing tens of tons of liquid hydrogen should be able to do it. Especially if it has several hours to do it.​

Hans

I suspect that the real breakthrough in the Annic Nova is in its ability to store power and release it quickly (perhaps a 1 minute burst rather than a 20 minute build-up and burst needs less total power to initiate a jump).

Perhaps the JD capacitors are stuck at a certain level until say TL 17 when improvements in both capacitors and anti-matter PP change the need for all that Hydrogen fuel for a JD and Annic Nova has TL 17 capacitors.

Just spit-balling 'what ifs'.

 

[mike wightman]

The Annic Nova uses a huge (1km when deployed) array to gather something - the term used is radiated stellar power.

It then converts the something to jump potential energy.

We do not know the answer to the question - what does the array actually collect?

We do not know the answer to the question - what is stored in the accumulators?

We do not know the answer to the question - how does the jump drive actually tear a hole in spacetime to access the higher jump dimensions?

Stars produce a lot of exotic particles, not just emr. For all we know the jump drive accumulator/capacitors may actually be trapping/storing neutrinos which can then be converted to jump potential energy by the jump coils which then rips the hole.

Or the particles/energy being collected by the array could be dark energy or dark matter based.

Bottom line is the Annic Nova array collects something from stars over several weeks, it then uses this stored something to jump.

A fusion plant running at maximum burn can do the same in a few minutes.

Anti-matter based plants can be used.

Note that there has never been a mention of fission based power plants being able to be used to power jump drives - so its not just electricity.

 

[BytePro]

Thought it obvious that the Annic Nova solar array uses captured solar (wind) particles to generate power via a catalytic cold fusion process. The power trickle feeds its alien long retention, rapid discharge capable, jump accumulators.

 

[Timerover51]

Thought it obvious that the Annic Nova solar array uses captured solar (wind) particles to generate power via a catalytic cold fusion process. The power trickle feeds its alien long retention, rapid discharge capable, jump accumulators.

Regardless, I think that I am going to have a Droyne colony using Annic Nova style ships, and maybe add a maneuver drive to go with the shuttles.

And consistency was never one of GDW's strongpoints.

 

[DangerousThing]

Note that there has never been a mention of fission based power plants being able to be used to power jump drives - so its not just electricity.

In T5 fission plant cannot power jump drives. However, I don't think it's just the electricity.

T5 uses EP to measure energy. 1 EP is the power generated from 1t of hydrogen fuel. I'm not sure of the exact terminology, but I use EP for power generated constantly, and EP-W (EP Weeks) for energy generated and stored.

Using a type S as an example, to initiate a jump 2 you need 20 EPW - not just 20 EP generated constantly, but rather a sudden burst of the equivalent of 1 week of 20 EP, or as I put it, 20 EPW.

A fission plant can't do this, but I assume that the fusion plants can.

Now IMTU I have extremely efficient batteries that can store enough for a jump. Many ships don't even have a backup power supply as long as they are assured of a charge at the end of the trip.

 

[rancke]

Bottom line is the Annic Nova array collects something from stars over several weeks, it then uses this stored something to jump.

And this mysterious something is also used to power the electrical equipment. Which means it is nothing more mysterious than electric power.

Note that there has never been a mention of fission based power plants being able to be used to power jump drives - so its not just electricity.

Either that or fission power plants are the inferior choice to fusion power plants by the time jump drives are invented. And since the power stored in the Annic Nova's accumulators is plain old-fashioned electric power, that explanation would seem to be the one to go with.


Hans