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

[Timothy Little]

On Fri, Apr 11, 2008 at 11:19:51AM -0400, Tom B wrote:
> It is the fact that power plants of a nuclear variety are not
> terribly adaptable in power output. A 40 MW plant puts out 40 MW.

Fission ones do.  We don't have fusion ones like Traveller ships.
If/when we do, it seems likely that they would be based on discrete
"shots" producing a certain amount of energy each, and the rate of
shots should be much more easily variable than changing the amount of
useful fission output.


> They probably charge you a single flat fee per berth or per foot and
> that includes air and electricity and if you don't use the air or
> electricity, you get no discount. So you're going to pay for it if
> you dock, so again, why run the plant?

Yes, I expect that the rate would be fairly flat.  Perhaps there may
be charges for excess power usage, but not likely to make a difference
to the question of whether it is cheaper to run ship's power plants in
port.


> For all you need to run minimal life support and lights and a bit of
> heating/cooling, you don't need anywhere near the normal operating
> budget of power for a starship.

I can certainly agree with that.  In GT civilian designs, maneuver and
jump drives typically use orders of magnitude more power than
everything else put together.  E.g. In one design I have lying around,
120 MW for either jump drive or maneuver drive, 3 MW for artificial
gravity, 0.15 MW for everything else combined.


- Tim