Quote:
Originally Posted by Anaraxes
Does T5 go into detail as to exactly when and how the fuel in the jump tanks gets used?
Clearing drop tanks would be pretty easy. They effectively have the same acceleration as the ship, because the ship can just turn them loose and then decelerate. If you have to jump from a dead stop (relative to what?), then it's still not an issue, as you can just add a vector, release, then decelerate.
So the question isn't where the tanks are, but where the fuel is. If it's LBB style, so all that fuel gets turned into energy stored in jump capacitors, then you can easily empty the tanks and clear them before you jump.
If it's the later style, where fuel is continually bleeding out over a week to form a shield in jumpspace, then you can't drop the tanks at all. They'll have to be inside the jump field to be taken along, effectively part of the volume of the ship, as they're not empty until you reach your destination.
You could take out the notion of capacitors, and say that all that fuel gets burned at once to enter into jumpspace, but that happens immediately, so there's no time to clear your drop tanks. (Such ship designs wouldn't include the tanks in the lump field, so most of them don't come along, which automatically damages the tanks. Proper design would keep that damage minor, though, maybe just a couple of struts with pipes that are intended to be replaced. If a jump field has a reasonably sharp and predictable boundary, that is.) This style implies a huge surge capacity in your power plant output, though.
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T5 states that the fuel is used Quickly and stored in the capacitors, such that the drop tanks can then be used and discarded. So, it seems that the answer to your question regarding when the fuel gets used is before the jump.
My problem with this whole mess is thus:
If the jump field surrounding the ship conforms to the ship due to a jump grid based jump drive - the field only extends to about a meter from the surface of the ship. When it enters into jump space, it is highly unlikely that the drop tanks will be within the jump field for such a ship.
If on the other hand, the jump field is a globe shape - then the size of the field generated is dependent upon how many cubic meters the ship has. It is essentially the cube root of cubic volume in meters if the ship, times 20
The problem I have is this...
If the drop tanks are not within the jump field, no harm, no foul. If your ship is accelerating at 1 G for 10 seconds, you will have reached a velocity of 98 meters per second. Displacement (distance travelled) is equal to 1/2 Acceleration * time^2, then it would only take about 7 second's worth of 1 g acceleration to pull ahead by 220+ meters. Those drop tanks shouldn't even be taking damage if the whole process to enter jump takes 20 minutes or 40 minutes (at least for a 100 dton hull). A 50,000 dton hull, at 1 G, would only need some 19 seconds to accelerate at 1 G to get outside of its field.
I honestly don't think being within a jump field is an issue UNLESS the jump occurs at precisely the moment that the fuel was drained from the tank itself.
Mind you, that only happens when dealing with a globe shaped jump field instead of a ship that was designed with a jump grid.
Your mileage may vary.