Unrefined Fuel Use IMprotoTU

[jawillroy]

I've been cobbling together a small-ship, small-empire LBB123 Proto-Traveller universe; lately I've been spending a lot of time thinking about starship considerations, military and commercial.

I am confronted with the contradiction that Scout and Navy ships *can* use unrefined fuel with no ill effects, and commercial ships *can't.* The explanation given in the book is flabby: one type is "equipped to do so" and the other is not. And yet ship design gave neither an indication of the cost of such equipping, nor the tonnage of such equipping. Now, book 5 covers this nicely with the purification plants. But since I'm using LBB2 for ship design and combat, I've wanted to come up with a solution independent of the later material.

SO.

In my definitely Non-OTU TU, it's ACTIVE DUTY Scout and Navy that can use unrefined fuel. Not because any equipment is removed or missing from the ship: it's the removal of staff and infrastructure. IMTU scouts and navy ships receive a much higher order of care on a regular basis than commercial ships can afford: after every major mission a ship gets a full shakedown. The engines are kept in a much higher level of trim, and so can handle the impurities of unrefined fuel more readily. Commercial ships, with their annual maintenance to rely on, need to pamper their neglected drives with premium fuel.

Same thing with scout and navy detection ranges: IMTU it's not about gear, it's about crew levels and eyballs on the bridge.

 

[boomslang]

The explanation given in the book is flabby: one type is "equipped to do so" and the other is not.

Your solution is plausible, but there are some issues.

First, TTB (pg. 51) explicitly mentions that Naval and Scout drives are "built" to use unrefined fuel, but there is no cost differential mentioned in the shipbuilding rules. As you note, how the drives are "equipped" to handle unrefined fuel is not explained beyond this, but nonetheless, it is a feature present from their construction.

Second, there are no listed differences in required Engineering or Flight crew between civilian and military vessels under the B2 rules. Also, given that military vessels must often operate away from bases for extended periods, would their ability to use unrefined fuel degrade with time, even if the annual maintenance interval is observed?

Third, your solution still dooms pretty much all Free Trader crews to eventual death (or at least marooning) by misjump, sooner or later.

IMTU, as a work-around, whether or not a vessel's drives can burn unrefined fuel at no penalty is a decision made by the architect and the client, and then integrated into the design & construction. For the military, there's no option; drives must accept unrefined fuel as part of mission requirements. For Subsidized Merchants and Liners, however, the bank and/or the government will usually require refined-only drives in order to prevent skipping and hijacking, while arranging for refined fuel to be provided for the Subbie's use by dedicated planetside facilities on route worlds with inadequately-rated starports. The big mainline Transports are also typically built to use refined-only, for similar reasons; it makes them less attractive for corsair-type purposes. Conversely, Free and Far Traders are almost always built to accept unrefined fuel, since they are expected to patronize the lower-rated starports, and will frequently have to make do with whatever is available.

This last also has the added effect of not ending my campaigns abruptly from random misjumps not otherwise resulting from PC shenanigans...

 

[Gadrin]

Not sure if you're interested, but from the Milieu-Zero PDF p12...

In Year -248, Sketola, which sided with the expansionists, started testing ramscoop jumpships, which would free jump craft from the need for wilderness or portside refueling

 

[Icosahedron]

In Year -248, Sketola, which sided with the expansionists, started testing ramscoop jumpships, which would free jump craft from the need for wilderness or portside refueling

Let me see, typical density of Hydrogen in space is one atom per cubic centimetre, so to fill a Free Traders tanks at 30x14 metric tonnes would take...

 

[epicenter00]

I've always hated the Unrefined Fuel/Refined Fuel thing in Traveller. It's probably one of the biggest appendixes or tonsils in the entire game. But in some weird homage to the LBB Traveller they keep all the pointless parts in future editions ... pointless things like Unrefined Fuel.

For the longest time I thought it was meant to be this thing where it was a plan by the Imperial government, shipbuilders, and starports to make money for starports and the Imperial government (indirectly) by "forcing" civilian shipping to known lanes and paying the grossly inflated costs for refined fuel at starports. Ships that didn't want to play that game got their own purifiers and did skimmed for whatever. Except the model doesn't work. Purifiers are cheap and reasonably small. They're not difficult to find nor are they illegal to own.

Fuel purifiers are so cheap and so accessible, there's really no good excuse why everyone who matters (ie; the players) wouldn't have one. I've yet to hear a good reason why they're not just included on all ships as a matter of course. The situation only gets worse because in some editions of Traveller, purifiers are included in the cost of some equipment ... except it doesn't cost, weigh, or bulk any more than those without the equipment.

If purifiers were expensive, used some sort of restricted technology (like the elements in them required enriched radioactives that could also be used to make very effective thermonuclear weapons), or were grossly bulky/heavy I could see the point of them, or if using unrefined fuel had some "realistic" drawback instead of just causing the occasional misjump. Instead, it just feels unfinished or something that used to have a bigger effect but was nerfed after playtesting, yet none of the writers ever removed it and it sort of became this inside joke at GDW were all subsequent editions would include it, just for laughs.

 

[jawillroy]

Ah, here it comes - thank you! I need balance like this.

First, TTB (pg. 51) explicitly mentions that Naval and Scout drives are "built" to use unrefined fuel, but there is no cost differential mentioned in the shipbuilding rules.

I think I was trying to shimmy around that, but true.

Second, there are no listed differences in required Engineering or Flight crew between civilian and military vessels under the B2 rules.

I figure all those extra gunners can hold spanners for the engineers when they're not on watch...

Also, given that military vessels must often operate away from bases for extended periods, would their ability to use unrefined fuel degrade with time, even if the annual maintenance interval is observed?

I thought of that after I wrote it, and yeah, it would, and that's not so good.

Third, your solution still dooms pretty much all Free Trader crews to eventual death (or at least marooning) by misjump, sooner or later.

Well, it does if they're reckless. I'd say a free trader would have to have a really, really good reason to use dirty fuel. I'd also allow engineering skill more play in avoiding the ill effects, which takes some of the edge off while keeping PCs busy.

IMTU, as a work-around, whether or not a vessel's drives can burn unrefined fuel at no penalty is a decision made by the architect and the client, and then integrated into the design & construction.

My old workaround was to assume that fuel purification was part of the scoop assembly, and that if you'd paid for the streamlining, the scoops were part of that.

This last also has the added effect of not ending my campaigns abruptly from random misjumps not otherwise resulting from PC shenanigans...

Valuable, I must say. Although I would point out that if the PCs know the risks of unrefined fuel, AND they still go ahead and chintz out and use it, that's a PC shenanigan right there.

 

[jawillroy]

As I'm analyzing these responses, I'm inclined to gloss the technical side of the fuel purification thing for MTU, as per Boomslang; I'm not willing to scrap that whole element of the CT system as per Epicenter00.

I'm leaning towards going with the rules as stated, except that if the ship's engineer does something on the order of "A system flush of the fuel injector frammus" and "recalibrating the lanthanum coil and handwavium projector" prior to jump, he can subtract his skill from the misjump roll. I figure a job like that should keep him busy, and the ship immobile, for about a day.

Plus, if someone really wanted to and had the cash and money on hand - and connections to a friendly scout base - the drives on an S-class masses the same as the one on an A-class ship. It'd take time to swap it in and get everything reconfigured, but then you've got the scout-spec drives on your tramp trader, thus making you perfectly free to fly into the boondocks and get bushwhacked by pirates. (See, there's more than one reason to stick to A and B ports in CT...)

 

[Jame]

I'm coming to the conclusion that all ships IMTU have a fuel processor built in standard, whether or not they're ever expected to do wilderness refuelling. That way they *can*, if they want to, get unrefined fuel if they want.

Plus it pays for itself at E ports, D ports and poor-quality C ports (i.e. TL-7, 8 or 9 C ports, because IMTU many C ports have refined fuel ... at TL-10 plus).

 

[boomslang]

My old workaround was to assume that fuel purification was part of the scoop assembly, and that if you'd paid for the streamlining, the scoops were part of that.

This is strikes me as very plausible and reasonable, especially since it takes up no displacement tonnage..

The only adjustment would be the need to add scoops -- costed as per HG2 -- to those rare unstreamlined military/scout ships that, being incapable of atmo ops, carry small craft to refuel themselves. (I have B2 versions of the Shivva-class and the Donosev-class which would be affected, for example.)

There should also be the option to omit fuel scoops from a build for credit, on the Type R for example, when an underwriter specifically wishes to make the fuel skimming option unavailable to (and also discourage unrefined fuel use by) an otherwise-streamlined vessel.

Unlike streamlining, fuel scoops should be retrofittable to any hull, streamlined or not, for 110% of their nominal cost, as per TCS.

That oughta cover it for you...

 

[jawillroy]

My 'wave with regard to the unstreamlined military/scout is to say that the purifiers are part of the tanker crafts' scoops, and dust my hands of it. The rest works pretty well for me! Thanks!

Jame, I'd say you can either go with that, or simply eliminate refined fuel from your campaign altogether: the result is the same.

 

[boomslang]

My 'wave with regard to the unstreamlined military/scout is to say that the purifiers are part of the tanker crafts' scoops, and dust my hands of it.

This also sounds plausible, but it does leave open the possibility that corsairs could steal a big, unstreamlined merchantman, and then just fuel it from small craft.

Which might not be an unreasonable scenario, now that I consider it...

So, you've pretty much convinced me that scoops should be adequate to provide refining services as part of the intake & separation process. Which means we can put all those starport refined fuel concessions effectively out of business, I suppose, and pass the cost savings along to the ship operators.

 

[jawillroy]

I dunno: I'd go by the notion that if an LBB2 ship was rated for unrefined fuel, then it would be part of the scoop assembly, not necessarily that all scoop assemblies were automatically. The military fueling ships are still military spec...

If one wanted to nerf unrefined fuel, why not just remove the DM for misjump, and keep the basic drive failure stuff? The cost and the drive failure rolls are enough to be a PITA and a plot-goad, without killing anyone outright.

 

[boomslang]

I dunno: I'd go by the notion that if an LBB2 ship was rated for unrefined fuel, then it would be part of the scoop assembly, not necessarily that all scoop assemblies were automatically. The military fueling ships are still military spec...

Heh; then you're right back to just simply handwaving it as a magical property of equipment arbitrarily labeled "military", only now you're sticking the label on scoops instead of drives.

If one wanted to nerf unrefined fuel, why not just remove the DM for misjump, and keep the basic drive failure stuff? The cost and the drive failure rolls are enough to be a PITA and a plot-goad, without killing anyone outright.

I'd say keep the DM, but realize that it is only applied to weird situations where some poor schmuck is running with refined-only drives and decides to cut corners, perhaps out of necessity.

Note that, in a TU where planetary sovereignty might only extend out to ten diameters from the starport, unless you operate exclusively deep within Hiver or Zhodani space where piracy is effectively non-existent and civilization is pervasive, milspec everything will be the default for all vessels and purposes.

I mean seriously, why would any ship owner or bank loan officer insist on commercial-grade sensors and drives when every hardscrabble Belter (and potential Corsair) has the top-notch milspec/scoutspec stuff installed in his rustbucket Type J? It just makes good sense to have the best equipment available, given that it costs no more than the commercial-grade stuff.

Shoving the refining capability into the scoop apparatus by default makes logical sense, and can finally dismiss the whole notion of "unrefined" fuel; every starship (and for that matter, B2 small craft) nominally runs on refined fuel because either it refines it as it is onloaded (regardless of source), or its fuel shuttles refine it (again, regardless of source) before onloading it to the mothership. Exceptions occur only in dire emergencies in which the misjump/malfunction DM subsequently comes into play, and we can finally stop fussing over fuel quality in routine operations.

Class A & B starports are then distinguished solely buy their repair/construction capabilities; what makes something a "starport" is the combination of minimal customs and (presumably unrefined, unless there's a racket being run) fuel availability...

 

[far-trader]

I will point out that Book 2 drives could be treated as civilian off the shelf models that do not include purifiers.

And if you rebuild ships according to Book 5 you can include purifier tonnage in about the same fuel/drive space.

The conclusion/rationalization being that military and some special civilian ships are built with the better drives and purifiers from Book 5 (even in Book 2 ) giving them the ability to use unrefined fuel.

 

[epicenter00]

I wouldn't eliminate refined/unrefined completely. I like the idea, actually. I just dislike how if you don't modify it in some way, the mechanic is totally flawed. Scoops are so easy and cheap that it's pretty baffling why Refined Fuel costs so much at Starports, at least to me. Every ship is going to just do Frontier Refueling, purify it, and it'll save for more money than buying fuel.

The least-modification method is actually to get rid of the thing that makes Navy and Scout drives able to accept unrefined fuel for the same price and weight as normal drives. Just factor in the cost of the scoop and purifier into the price of the dirve for Navy and Scouts.

Personally, I believe that purification machinery should be a lot bulkier and power hungry than they are. They don't have to be expensive, just time-consuming (and power-hungry) to operate. If you make the purification machinery so massive (both in dtons and tonnes) that it starts to cut into the cargo performance of ships fitted with them, that'll already discourage people from getting them even if they're not expensive. Furthermore, if you make it so power hungry and sufficiently slow (perhaps 24 hours at the least to purify a merchantman's fuel) the time factor involved again will discourage people from simply relying up on fuel scoops.

---

I've considered before that the Refined Fuel price is logical and intentional by the Imperial government and is a "wink, wink, nudge, nudge" collusion agreement between the Emperor, Megacorporate bulk factors, and starport operators to present a de-facto subsidy for small ship operators. Why? The Emperor and the Megacorps understand that the small ship operators are vital to expanding the markets of Third Imperium by developing underused trade route and opening new ones. Hundreds of them fail and go out of business of course, but for every hundred that fail, a few succeed and thus the economies of the Third Imperium grow.

How? Fuel prices.

The ridiculous price for starport refined fuel is accurate and exists for huge megacorporate bulk freighters/heighliners (the mythical 10,000+ dton things that we all know exist in Traveller but people rarely discuss). The nature of such ships, probably like an open frame with attachment points for hundreds or thousands of standard-design shipping containers prevent them from being streamlined. The price for Refined Fuel is what starport operators know they can charge without the megacorporations balking at the price and setting up their own fuelling operations. The cost of fuel is simply passed on as shipping costs. This doesn't influence large-shipment merchants who deal regularly with the megacorps because the fuel price is mitigated in bulk shipping discounts and such companies also do long-term shipping contracts.

Who it does hurt are small lot movers and those who ship infrequently. However, this is intentional - such small lots shippers then turn to your small-time Free and Far Traders to do their shipping. Everyone knows that such small shippers will refine their own fuel to keep their costs down and able to compete with megacorporate rates ... provided there's not too many small fry. Once there's too many small-time operators the going rate for small lots drop and desperate small ship captains will take their ships to forge new markets in underdeveloped areas. Once these captains take the risks and open new markets, eventually some will be profitable enough to open a new megacorporate route.

 

[boomslang]

Every ship is going to just do Frontier Refueling, purify it, and it'll save for more money than buying fuel.

The travel times out to a local GG will pretty much preclude this as a practical option for most Traders.

One possible option to preserve refined fuel is to make it the only type of fuel available at A & B starports. Combine this with local legal prohibitions against dipping (if Hydrography even makes dipping possible), and you're all set to gouge your PC starship operators to your heart's content...

 

[jawillroy]

One possible option to preserve refined fuel is to make it the only type of fuel available at A & B starports. Combine this with local legal prohibitions against dipping (if Hydrography even makes dipping possible), and you're all set to gouge your PC starship operators to your heart's content...

Now I think you might very well have something, there.

ALSO: It occurs to me that Traveller Universes -the OTU, and really almost any other derived from the ruleset - are very, very conservative: you have technologies and basic patterns of behavior which last centuries upon centuries with very little change. Perhaps one can look at it this way: although nowadays refinement tech is common and inexpensive, Imperial Safety Regulations still state that a ship carrying high passengers MUST use refined fuel or face severe fines.

 

[Ron Gianti]

I can't see a logical reason why anyone would use unrefined fuel as stated in book 2. Breakdown's are reasonable, but the misjumps are just way to harsh and fatal. All commercial ships would be forced to ply the lanes between class A and B starports.

IMTU - Since book 2 states that Military and Scout ships are "built to use unrefined fuel" with no penalty, and since the Patrol Cruiser specifically is stated as a "military ship", it makes an excellent sized ship for adventurers and (almost..) clearly states that it can use unrefined fuel with no penalty.

In the future if the adventurers want a custom ship and you don't want to jump to book 5, they could design what they want and the GM could call it a surplus military ship.

The GM could make it a higher cost, subject to mobilization, force a favor for the military first or just let it go and move the story along...

 

[jawillroy]

All commercial ships would be forced to ply the lanes between class A and B starports.

This seems, to me, to be the point: part of making certain that even in the heart of the Imperium there were backwaters to which travel was dangerous, which only the desperate (read "PCs")would risk.

I'd assumed that the T's could use unrefined, being military and all.

The GM could make it a higher cost, subject to mobilization, force a favor for the military first or just let it go and move the story along...

That's a neat solution!

 

[boomslang]

Now I think you might very well have something, there.

"In order to maximize the safety and reliability of our patrons' engineering systems, our top-rated starport is proud to offer only the highest-quality 'pre-refined' fuel to meet all your operational needs!"

That'll be Cr500/ton, please; cash only.