06-25-2020, 08:48 PM | #1 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: traveller
|
[Heresy] Tanks for the space!
By their nature, Traveller starships spend most of their time with empty jump fuel tanks. Assuming one day on each end maneuvering to and from the 100D limit, the fraction is almost 90%. Any reasonably competent design could isolate power plant fuel and fuel for subsequent jumps (if any) in their own tanks, leaving big chunks (10% per jump number) of the interior empty and dry except at the very beginning of a voyage.
So, what's to prevent designing the jump tanks with this fact in mind, and using the space for something else? Of course, many existing Traveller deck plans are not well adapted for this approach, but there's nothing to prevent it in theory. Prepping the tanks is mostly a matter of venting any residual hydrogen to vacuum or jumpspace, allowing the bulkheads to warm up, filling the space with breathable air, and opening the maintenance hatches. NASA originally conceived of Skylab in similar terms, called the "wet workshop" approach. It was eventually shelved in favor of "dry workshop" designs, mostly due to the difficulty in adding components to the tank after departure. This constraint would also limit the uses of an empty fuel tank to those with limited and mobile infrastructure requirements. Some thoughts:
|
06-26-2020, 04:45 AM | #2 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
|
Re: [Heresy] Tanks for the space!
I want to make sure I am understanding this.
You are suggesting that the now empty jump fuel tanks can be used for the week in jump space and journey to destination world for other purposes? I think this is the first time anyone has suggested this that I can recall and it is a brilliant idea. |
06-26-2020, 06:57 AM | #3 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: traveller
|
Re: [Heresy] Tanks for the space!
Yes, that's it. I don't recall ever seeing it discussed, though there are depths to the Traveller Mailing List or Citizens of the Imperium that I have yet to plumb.
|
06-26-2020, 09:57 AM | #4 |
Join Date: Sep 2013
|
Re: [Heresy] Tanks for the space!
But what about the next trip, when the tanks will be filled again with refined (unsoiled) liquid hydrogen?
Would it really be a good idea to scratch or pollute a tank that has to be cleaner than a intensive care unit? I think the engineers would scream bloody murder about this. :-)
__________________
""The origin of everything good is due to games." - Friedrich August Wilhelm Froebel, creator of the kindergarten. |
06-26-2020, 11:28 AM | #5 | |
Join Date: Aug 2007
|
Re: [Heresy] Tanks for the space!
Quote:
The real issue might be "Why do this?". Traveller ships are not at all cramped. I live in a 20 dTon house (16 if you use realistic ceiling heights). Yet I do have 3 bedrooms and 2 baths besides a living room, kitchen, dining room and laundry. So that 200 dTon Free Trader that everyone thinks is just like the Miillenium Falcon has the interior space of good-sized mansion. 10,000 sq ft or 8000 after you take out the fuel tanks. I wouldn't go to a lot of trouble to temporaily reclaim that 2000 sq ft.
__________________
Fred Brackin |
|
06-28-2020, 08:34 AM | #6 | |||
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: traveller
|
Re: [Heresy] Tanks for the space!
Ah, forum glitches. Three days of posts gone, likely never to return. Let's see what I can reconstruct:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
There was one additional response by Fred, where he essentially missed this part of my original post: |
|||
06-28-2020, 09:57 AM | #7 |
Join Date: Jul 2007
|
Re: [Heresy] Tanks for the space!
I did a detailed post about how the 100 dton Scout and the 200 dton Beowulf in the core book do show fuel tanks by the baffles or anti-slosh partitions. Unlabeled in the core book, but identified in the separate Deck Plans.
__________________
-- Burma! |
06-29-2020, 08:39 AM | #8 |
Join Date: Sep 2007
|
Re: [Heresy] Tanks for the space!
The collapsible fuel bladder was one old canon approach to the concept. Rather than thinking of the fuel tank being mostly repurposed as some other space, they were thinking of cargo space that was temporarily a fuel tank. Of course, turning the temporary fuel space into cargo space after jump isn't terribly helpful. But the bladders could be useful for more cargo on J1 trips while still having the ability to do a J2 at need. You could declare the same big space a "ballroom" or "gym" for additional recreational space. But you can't take on extra passengers any more than you can take on extra cargo; you're just making the existing passenger's trip more luxurious. (Or profitable, when you set the up the casino for entertainment :)) A military transport vessel might really pack in the troops at launch and hot-bunk for those first few days getting to the jump point, then set up cots in the empty fuel tank, or briefing / training / exercise rooms.
Of course, you also have to assume that all that jump fuel is consumed instantly at the moment jump starts. Canon's mixed on that; sometimes it's getting bled out over the course of the jump, or powering the jump drives over the course of the week. So rather than being able to convert one big space, you'd have to have more of a continuously movable wall, like a piston, that gets you more and more space as the week of jump progresses. Ships with aerodynamics, or even curved shapes that aren't convenient for the boxes of rooms humans are used to living in like the Broadsword, will normally have a lot of their fuel volume distributed in conformal spaces around the hull that might not be terrible useful for anything else. Last edited by Anaraxes; 06-29-2020 at 06:13 PM. |
06-29-2020, 09:25 AM | #9 | |
Join Date: Aug 2007
|
Re: [Heresy] Tanks for the space!
Quote:
I'm okay about forgetting the Gazelle.
__________________
Fred Brackin |
|
06-29-2020, 01:23 PM | #10 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: traveller
|
Re: [Heresy] Tanks for the space!
Not so easy to forget about Book 5 (1980), p. 27. MT (Refs Manual, p. 83), TNE (Brilliant Lances, p. 12), T4 (FF&S 2, p. 16), and T5 (Book 2, p. 117) all have drop tanks. T4 (ibid., p. 12) and T5 (ibid., p. 115) explicitly state that fuel for a jump is consumed prior to entering jump space, so I infer that was always the intent.
|
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|