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Old 04-25-2019, 10:03 AM   #14
hal
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Buffalo, New York
Default Re: Cracking water in TRAVELLER

Quote:
Originally Posted by malloyd View Post

...The real unbalancing concept for Traveller is metallic hydrogen, which given the existence of materials like bonded superdense should be *easy* with existing tech. Estimates of densities vary, by 0.85 is about the minimum estimate, leading to 10-fold or more smaller fuel tanks.
Thank you for the how-to on the weights and such. :)

The last bit is an oucher in that it would transform Traveller in a big way. I guess the law of unintended consequences strikes yet again.

One of the reasons I like Traveller overall is the very limitation that the fuel tank imposes on ship design and ability to travel. Any time I am tempted to run a sci-fi campaign, I look for ways to keep FTL travel compact. The reason being - I don't want to have to try and detail millions of worlds simply because FTL allows for mankind to go anywhere and everywhere quickly.

T5 tosses in the added complication of having to roll against Navigation with the number of dice being rolled, incrementing the further your ship jumps. Thus, a Jump-5 is that much more difficult to engage in as compared against a Jump-2.

What I also liked about Travller was that ships couldn't engage in combat while in jump space. Star Trek allows for combat in warp, Star Wars does not. Therein lies the difference for me in Traveller and Star Wars. In Star Wars, ships could be forced out of Hyperspace by masses in normal space. CT didn't have that.

In any event - the water/ammonia/metallic Hydrogen issues can change Traveller to some extent, or to a major extent. I don't think I want to see Metallic Hydrogen in my campaigns any time soon (if at all).
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