Coolant [Spaceships]

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Casualty is only violated if the message arrives before it is sent

Any FTL signal will arrive before it was sent in some reference frame (it's only actually a problem if round-trip time is negative, but that's doable too with more work). The order of events outside of their respective light-cones is not well defined in GR.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Polkageist

Anyway, another neat toggle to reactionless-ish drives is that they have some sort of 'drag' that happens on spacetime. It would pay off the many examples in fiction of a spaceship needing to both 1) be under thrust always, and 2) have an upper speed limit.

If it's not inertialess or the like, there's the problem of retained velocity and energy in the rocks and such that you throw overboard (and which therefore aren't attached to the drive, and thus suffer no drag).

[AlexanderHowl]

Anyway, the feasibility of FTL was not quite the point of this thread. Another coolant related idea might be requiring coolant for beam weapon firing. In that case, each tank of coolant possesses 100 20-second turns of firing for one weapon (200 20-second turns of firing for one improved weapons). For example, a spaceship with four fixed major UV batteries would consume one tank of coolant per 25 20-second turns of combat while a spaceship with two 30-turrent improved laser tertiary batteries would consume one tank of coolant every 100 20-second terns of combat.

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Anyway, the feasibility of FTL was not quite the point of this thread. Another coolant related idea might be requiring coolant for beam weapon firing. In that case, each tank of coolant possesses 100 20-second turns of firing for one weapon (200 20-second turns of firing for one improved weapons). For example, a spaceship with four fixed major UV batteries would consume one tank of coolant per 25 20-second turns of combat while a spaceship with two 30-turrent improved laser tertiary batteries would consume one tank of coolant every 100 20-second terns of combat.

I'd be tempted to say something like the default radiators can handle the normal heat, but providing an extra power point and dumping a single tank of coolant can double the RoF of a beam weapon system for X combat turns (would need more time than I currently have available to come up with reasonable numbers for X).

[Aldric]

It's ammo for Beam weapons. I would much rather have a more detailed energy management, than worry about more supplies for a ship. But that's also something I'll write about in another thread.
As for using resources to improve RoF, my first question would be: Is it needed? I understand that offense is a lot more powerful than defense for spaceships, if that's the case, then giving weapons more power might not be a good idea. Unless you also have force screens that can benefit from a similar option.

[Polkageist]

Bingo, if you really pare it down the bones of the question is 'what is a reasonable consumable for various ship systems?'

Coolant I think works pretty well because you can set up a 'free' baseline that is defined by the equilibrium between heat generation and heat dissipation.

Coolant can also be a renewable resource, in that using it up doesn't literally use it up but the cost of regenerating it as a resource is one of time. Time that isn't feasible to let pass in a dramatic scene, making it a per-scene consumable that comes back when there's a period of down time.

Finally, if it's literally consumed and is gone by its usage then the labeling of 'coolant' is less important and you can use any interesting thing. For lasers, present-day chemical lasers use a chemical reaction to power them, so a laser's 'ammo' would be that mix of chemicals that give it the punch it needs but those tanks need to be refilled after a certain number of "shots". For FTL, it's coolant, or ultra-high-density reactor fuel, or a projected matter shield (I think traveller does this? encapsulates a ship in FTL in a hydrogen bubble to protect it?), or psychic souls fed into a dimension-shifting engine to get all grimdark.

[AlexanderHowl]

Souls would be difficult to sustain, though it would be an interesting way to encourage large spaceships. For example, if one soul is randomly consumed when entering hyperspace and one soul is randomly consumed when leaving hyperspace, regardless of the size of the spaceship, then small FTL capable spaceships would be vanishing rare. Of course, it would make people highly reluctant to engage in FTL travel.

[awesomenessofme1]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Souls would be difficult to sustain, though it would be an interesting way to encourage large spaceships. For example, if one soul is randomly consumed when entering hyperspace and one soul is randomly consumed when leaving hyperspace, regardless of the size of the spaceship, then small FTL capable spaceships would be vanishing rare. Of course, it would make people highly reluctant to engage in FTL travel.

Pretty sure that part is a reference to Warhammer 40k, where it's pretty much par for the course.

[Bengt]

You mostly sacrifice the souls of psychics to the emperor though. FTL travel is dangerous because it's a shortcut through hell and demons may invade the ship. :)

[AlexanderHowl]

Yes, entering and exiting the Warp is relatively safe, it is traveling through the Warp that is dangerous. Even so, the smallest warp-capable spaceships mass one million metric tons and have crews in the thousands, so they could lose one soul entering and leaving the Warp and probably not care.