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

[Jerry W Barrington]

On 4/11/08 11:19 AM, "Tom B" <kaladorn at gmail.com> 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. This is a big
> problem in the grid because the demand can change by as much as 50% in the
> course of a day. Nuclear can meet the load below that amount, but start up
> times on current plants are on the order of weeks or months (not hours). But
> we can't sink the excess power when we don't need it without huge battery or
> capacitor farms. So nuclear is a poor solution for that reason alone to many
> of our issues with the electrical grid. (Note, I think this could be worked
> around, but it is not a small problem to solve by any means)

It does *not* take weeks to physically start up a nuclear power plant.  That
*is* a matter of hours (at most).  The weeks to months you cite are about
economic and/or regulatory issues.

And no, they *don't* have to run full-bore or off.  The more the control
rods are opened, the more heat generated, and thus the more power.  Where di
you get that idea.

> Also, the ports may *require* you to shutdown your plant if your posted
> departure window is more than 48 hours from your arrival. They may be
> uncomfortable with the possibilities of people trying the 'manual disengage'
> or just running plants on freighters that may be 200 years and well past
> their last annual maintenance date. Insurance underwriters or safety
> authorities may demand you are shutdown when in dock.

"Yup, I'll be leaving in 45 hours..."  <36 hours later>  "Hmm, we've decided
to stick around another day... for some maintenance work."

> The ports may also *require* you to shutdown and use their power and air for
> economic reasons. They have to keep their own big plants running and they
> want places to sink the power. They also want the revenue from docked ships.
> 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?

Flat fee.  Hee hee, that's funny.  Then what would prevent me from using
your flat-fee power to nearly fill the Jump capacitors?  After all, it's
just electricity.  Besides ports, like other organizations, don't like flat
fees.  They want to nickel and dime you to death.

> So, you've just argued that we don't have batteries capable of running a
> ship - with which, by the way, I will argue given most FFS tables. 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. Batteries can easily supply that for a week. Heck, in
> case of plant failures, you'd expect that civil starfaring authorities would
> *require* you do to have adequate backup generators/batteries to support
> some number of days of operation without going into cold berths. So let's
> assume we've got good battery tech. But I *doubt* it's good enough to sink
> the output of most hefty reactors for length periods. So where does the
> energy go?

I'd argue that the Jump capacitors could easily hold enough power for
dockside operations for a week or more.  Plus, as stated in another post,
you need the backup power to restart the power plant, either from the port
forcing you to shut down or from some in-flight emergency.

> You could try radiating some of it as heat but that's a limited utility
> given the problems of radiating heat in a vaccuum without bleeding mass left
> right and center. Maybe some stations, a bit underpowered on their own main
> plant, might have battery banks and encourage spacers to sell power from
> their plants, but this would be the odd and interesting exception rather
> than the rule.
> 
> Ultimately, you want the dramatic hook in the game. There are plenty of
> valid economic, safety, and mechanical reasons you can throw at it to
> reinforce the presencce of that dramatic hook. That's really all there is to
> it. If you don't want such a hook, leave it out in your game. But the canon
> suggests it and I've suggested reasons it may be so enough to satisfy myself

Once again, I'd argue that canon contains a lot of nonsense that wasn't
thought out before being written.  And you've just reinforced my statement
below, that it's a meta-game issue, not driven by in-world reasoning.  I
could offer "dramatic hook" reasoning for any absurd thing, and your logic
would apply just as well.

>> The only reason seems to be so the GM can inflict things on the players
>> "with their pant down", which is a meta-game reason, not an in-game
>> reason.