[TML] [Merchant Shipping] Some ideas I came up with tomake merchant shipping more interesing

[Tom B]

>
>
> >> Do they even use the big engine for power or only
> >> propulsion? The fuel still costs credits and cutting every cost to
> >> the bone
> >> is in the interests of the crew.
> >
> > PCs generally go with gas giant or ocean fueling where possibly.
> > When fuel
> > is free, that issue is gone.
>
> Er? Not in my games, wilderness refueling has been generally the
> exception not the rule.


If you look at travel times to and from a gas giant from a jump point or
mainworld, you may well find that you're time is worth more than your
benefit. And if gas giant refueling is in any way hazardous - the process is
a bit risky, you need to have and maintain additional equipment on your ship
which might deter some installing it, or there are a possibilities (and
there almost always are) of some form of pirate launching an attack from
inside the gas giant while you are on a fueling run, refueling suddenly
seems a lot less attractive than easily pumped fuel from a port.

> Given that running silent is a documented maneuver, the ship must
> > be able to
> > start it up on it's own.  Ergo, no need for station power.  And many
> > lower-class ports don't even *offer* power.
>
> That I have to agree with, Imagining a starship sized blower unit
> amuses methough.
>
> Though I generally think the one plant that drives the entire ship
> conceptthat a lot of people around here subscribe to be baffling. Most
> ships
> havemultiple plants, and the ability to shift load as needed.
>

Here's the thing:

How much power do you need while ballistic vs under 1G, 2G, etc. ?
How much do your power requirements change on a bigger ship when you dock
and most of your crew are gone ashore? You can disengage a lot of life
support, heating, and so forth while they're gone ashore.
How much do your combat power requirements, especially for massive active
scan rigs and energy weapons, change your usage profile?

If it takes you an hour to bring up a plant (even if you have your notional
single plant segmented into 10 smaller plants), then getting surprised when
you're not expecting combat may well mean you don't have power for heavy
thrust, active sensors or weapons.

And if you run the big plant at full tilt all the time, where's the excess
power go?

This is one of the conundrums with the Traveller drives. It should take a
hefty chunk of a ship's power to generate thrust (I forget if it actually
does, but it should) with M-drives. J-drives are their own insanity, but
they have mass capacitor banks that are charged then discharged. Charging
may take some time too.

So if I have a plant capable of a high output to charge a jump drive and to
support high G thrust and to drive weapons, it had better be something I can
turn off (and the only way to do this is the variety of different actual
plants that constitute the single logical plant) parts of when I don't need
that power. But in those cases, how do you get it up fast enough in some
situations?

I think this sort of multiplant situation explains why it takes a ship some
notable time to come from a low alert status to a high alert status - the
bringing live of the power systems to drive the combat systems (as well as
time for people to get suited and reach duty stations, strap in, etc). It
also means that ships going into areas they expect combat will have the
entirety of their power plant system online and will be generating more
energy than they need for some period of time (I think this is where they
charge up some batteries, which they later make sure to exhaust once they're
out of a combat situation or during particularly high energy demands during
combat).

I think this sort of conjuration of how power plants function introduces a
number of interesting in-game effects and decisions for how to handle your
ship. They are largely obscured by the fleet combat systems, but I assume on
individual ships, commanders and engineers work to make these decisions as
necessary and to keep the ship's energy balance (supply vs. need) as close
to even as possible. The times when there is a disparity will be the
interesting times....

T.