traveller fuel

[jmurphy]

i still don't understand how one acquires fuel out in the wild in traveller. how do those scoops function? if i'm planning on making some jumps into the wild blue yonder what kind of planning do i need to make?

[DigitalGolem]

Re: traveller fuel

 

Originally posted by jmurphy

i still don't understand how one acquires fuel out in the wild in traveller. how do those scoops function? if i'm planning on making some jumps into the wild blue yonder what kind of planning do i need to make?

 

Traveller's fusion technology (apparently) uses plain old hydrogen for fuel. (as opposed to its theoretically more easily fused isotopes) So a ship needs the right equipment to refuel in the wild; intake vents for hydrogen gas found in the atmospheres of gas giants, processing plants to purify it, and in cases where gaseous hydrogen can't be found, cracking units to seperate the hydrogen found in water, ammonia, methane, etc.

 

The intake vents from Traveller are defined as capable of taking on 20% of the ship's volume per hour, in the form of unrefined hydrogen. Fuel purifying plants are usually designed to process the ship's entire tankage in a few hours. For warships (time is critical) and for merchants (time is money) this period is usually 6 to 8 hours, but for any ship that's not in a hurry, a smaller plant is sufficient, so long as the fuel all gets processed before use.

 

DGv3.0

[shadowcat1313]

ships can also use water from an ocean, and even cut up chunks of ice from a comet etc for fuel.

 

this fuel can also be used unpurified if absolutely necessary, but

this carries a risk of misjump, and should increase the maintenance needed to keep things running properly if done very often.

 

ocean refueling while a safer option in some cases can have problems of its own. as one of my groups found out on a lower tech water world with a high law level. the players were paranoid enough to have somebody on sensor watch when they decided to do an ocean refuel, and hadnt bothered to ask permission or pay for permits and all of a sudden the sensor op reported torpedoes in the water at close range. granted they were simple straight running torps, but they'd make one heck of a hole in a merchant hull.

 

 

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