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Old 09-06-2019, 11:29 AM   #12
AlexanderHowl
 
Join Date: Feb 2016
Default Re: [Spaceships] Eclipse Phase Spacecraft

Quote:
Originally Posted by Eukie View Post
Fast Courier



Code:
Front    System
[1]      Advanced Laminate Armor (dDR 10)
         Fuel Tank (33 tons providing 28 mps)
[2-4]    Fuel Tanks (each 50 tons providing 84 mps)
[5-6]    Cargo Holds (100 tons)
[core]   Control Room (C8, comm/sensor 6, 3 control stations)
         Habitat (12 bunks, 1 Luxury Cabin, 1 Mini-Nanofac, see notes)
Centre   System
[1]      Advanced Laminate Armor (dDR 10)
         Fuel Tank (33 tons providing 28 mps)
[2-6]    Fuel Tanks (each 50 tons providing 84 mps)
Rear     System
[1]      Advanced Laminate Armor (dDR 10)
         Fuel Tank (33 tons providing 28 mps)
[2-6]    5x High Thrust Antimatter Plasma Rocket (0.01 G)
[core]   Fuel Tank (50 tons providing 84 mps, see notes)
Code:
TL            10
Spacecraft    Fast Courier
dST/HP        70
Hnd/SR        -3/5
HT            12
Move          0.1G/924 mps
LWt.          1,000
Load          101
SM            +8
Occ           13SAV
dDR           10
Cost          565,000,000
Notes
The Fast Courier is TL11 for Complexity purposes (p. SS8-6).

The Fast Courier runs on antimatter-boosted hydrogen/water, for a refueling cost of $600M per tank. Since antimatter production in Eclipse Phase is mature and large-scale, it may be reasonable to lower this to the same cost as antimatter-catalyzed hydrogen/water, for $1M/tank.

As always, the exact habitat makeup is speculative.

Each of the two Habitat small spaces can be exchanged for 167 tons of extra cargo holds, reducing the cost by 300K each. (And an additional 1M if the Mini-Nanofac is removed.) This reduces occupancy to 3AV.

Each of the two Cargo Holds can be exchanged for 6 cabins, increasing the cost by 1M per system exchanged.

While Spaceships has all fuel tanks for antimatter-based fuels be treated as Volatile systems, it seems rather reasonable to allow the antimatter to be concentrated in a single system: in this case a [core] fuel tank. The other Fuel Tanks should therefore not be considered Volatile systems.

The three control stations can be removed for a 150K reduction in cost.

The Fast Courier can have the Self-Healing feature (p. SS7-22) for a +2M to cost.
You cannot decrease the cost of antimatter production without superscience though, which would make the setting TL11^. If you want to preserve realism, antimatter is going to cost out the nose. I will explain.

So, one gram of antimatter possesses 90 TJ of energy content, which is the equal to 25 GW-H of electricity ($2.5 million worth of retail electricity at TL8). At TL11, antimatter is $25 million a gram, so the reaction mass probably contains 24 grams per metric ton. If we assume the same energy prices as TL8, the efficiency is 10%, meaning that you would need a 99.9% drop in energy prices for antimatter to be as cheap as you want.

Last edited by AlexanderHowl; 09-06-2019 at 11:40 AM.
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