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Old 07-09-2018, 01:21 PM   #1
Alonsua
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Default Power plant design

Would Engineer (Electrical) work to design a fusion reactor?
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Old 07-09-2018, 01:32 PM   #2
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Default Re: Power plant design

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Would Engineer (Electrical) work to design a fusion reactor?
I think that I would rule that Engineer (Nuclear) needs to be it's own specialty. The list in Basic Set says "specialties include..." (My emphasis.) Using the word include implies to me that the list is not meant to be definitive. But I'm pretty liberal about allowing new specialties. It prevents skill bloat.
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Old 07-09-2018, 02:29 PM   #3
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I think that I would rule that Engineer (Nuclear) needs to be it's own specialty.
I would agree, though to build an entire plant you would also need Engineer (civil) and Engineer (Electrical). Something that big and complex requires several skills.
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Old 07-09-2018, 03:31 PM   #4
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Default Re: Power plant design

The power plant specialties under Mechanic include fission power plant, fusion power plant, and antimatter power plant. Since there are examples of Engineer skills for mechanism types and vehicle types being split up comparably to Mechanic skills, I would probably make Engineer (Fusion Power Plant) its own specialty. (There clearly is not a specialty of Engineer (Mechanical), though there are Engineer (Electrical) and Engineer (Electronic).)

I agree about Engineer (Civil) for the construction of the facility that houses the plant. I'm less sure about Engineer (Electrical); if the conversion of fusion energy into electrical potential is inherent in the way fusion plants work, it might not be needed, whereas if the fusion produces heat that drives a heat engine that turns a generator, the generator might need it. (On the other hand, does a diesel-electric system, like that in a submarine, call for Engineer (Electrical) to design the generator, batteries, and motors, or is that subsumed under Engineer (Diesel-Electric Power Plant)?) Setting up the transmission lines and any switching mechanisms would almost surely call for Engineer (Electrical), though.
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Old 07-09-2018, 04:22 PM   #5
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Default Re: Power plant design

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Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
The power plant specialties under Mechanic include fission power plant, fusion power plant, and antimatter power plant. Since there are examples of Engineer skills for mechanism types and vehicle types being split up comparably to Mechanic skills, I would probably make Engineer (Fusion Power Plant) its own specialty. (There clearly is not a specialty of Engineer (Mechanical), though there are Engineer (Electrical) and Engineer (Electronic).)

I agree about Engineer (Civil) for the construction of the facility that houses the plant. I'm less sure about Engineer (Electrical); if the conversion of fusion energy into electrical potential is inherent in the way fusion plants work, it might not be needed, whereas if the fusion produces heat that drives a heat engine that turns a generator, the generator might need it. (On the other hand, does a diesel-electric system, like that in a submarine, call for Engineer (Electrical) to design the generator, batteries, and motors, or is that subsumed under Engineer (Diesel-Electric Power Plant)?) Setting up the transmission lines and any switching mechanisms would almost surely call for Engineer (Electrical), though.
How sure are we that we cannot use Engineer (Electrical)?

Electrical Engineering.

Power engineering, also called power systems engineering, is a subfield of electrical engineering that deals with the generation, transmission, distribution and utilization of electric power, and the electrical apparatus connected to such systems.

Power Engineering.

Moreover considering that Engineer (Electronics) deals with anything from computers to telecommunications and sensors.

Last edited by Alonsua; 07-09-2018 at 04:27 PM.
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Old 07-09-2018, 04:29 PM   #6
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Default Re: Power plant design

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Setting up the transmission lines and any switching mechanisms would almost surely call for Engineer (Electrical), though.
Thats the part I was going for, connecting it to the power grid and the non reactor stuff like lighting, A/C and other equipment.
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Old 07-09-2018, 04:46 PM   #7
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How sure are we that we cannot use Engineer (Electrical)?
For what? Like just about everything else in the real world, power plants are designed by a team. I think Engineer (Electrical) is clearly the go-to skill to design a generator, it may or may not be relevant for the fusor depending on how that ends up working (keep in mind we still don't really know how to build one worth the effort) and is almost certainly not the skill you'd use to design a heat transfer system, cooling tower or containment building. I'd expect the team leader to have Engineer (Electrical) or (Civil), but honestly Administration is probably his most important skill. You'd definitely want several Electrical Engineers with a concentration in energy conversion on the team though.

For a cinematic game where one guy is going to do it all, Engineer (Electrical) sounds like a pretty reasonable option in the absence of a (Nuclear) or (Energy Conversion) specialty (both of which I'd consider add if I were rebuilding the list in the Basic Set). The equally absent (Chemical) might also work here - there are actually a lot of similarities between chemical and power plants.
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Old 07-09-2018, 05:00 PM   #8
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How sure are we that we cannot use Engineer (Electrical)?
In a hydroelectric power plant, the electric circuits, the control systems, the transformers, and most likely the generators are designed by an electrical engineer. But the water turbines and the mechanisms that couple them to the generators are designed by a mechanical engineer. And the dam is designed by a civil engineer. Neither dams nor turbines fall under electrical engineering.

In GURPS skills, power plants are listed as specializations of Mechanic, so I take it that a steam engine, a gas turbine, a hydro turbine, and a fission reactor are all mechanical rather than electrical systems as GURPS categorizes them, even though you get current out. Now a solar plant with no moving parts could be purely electrical.
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Old 07-09-2018, 07:47 PM   #9
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Well, He-3 fusion power plants will use induction to generate electricity from the He and p created by the fusion reaction. Other forms of likely fusion candidates have the majority of their energy either released in gamma rays or neutrons, so they would require a medium for energy capture (like shielding) and a medium for energy transfer (like water), so they just end up being advanced steam engines (and, depending on the type of fusion, not that much cleaner than nuclear). For example, DT fusion at commercial levels would cause the entire reactor to become lethally radioactive for the next century after just six months of operation, which is why no one in the field really thinks that commercial fusion reactors will use DT (the other reasons are nuclear weapon proliferation and the phenomenal expense of tritium, $30,000 per gram, which will produce around $1500 worth of wholesale electricity).
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Old 07-10-2018, 01:23 AM   #10
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Default Re: Power plant design

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Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
In a hydroelectric power plant, the electric circuits, the control systems, the transformers, and most likely the generators are designed by an electrical engineer. But the water turbines and the mechanisms that couple them to the generators are designed by a mechanical engineer. And the dam is designed by a civil engineer. Neither dams nor turbines fall under electrical engineering.

In GURPS skills, power plants are listed as specializations of Mechanic, so I take it that a steam engine, a gas turbine, a hydro turbine, and a fission reactor are all mechanical rather than electrical systems as GURPS categorizes them, even though you get current out. Now a solar plant with no moving parts could be purely electrical.
But seems like Engineer (Electrical) covers related Mechatronics too!

"Power station engineering is a subject of electrical engineering, and all the basics of nuclear power generation are involved in this field".

In the third edition there were such skills, but they were retired by the fourth edition and:
1. There were a lot of skill bloating too (example: "Cryptanalysis", "Cryptography", "Cryptology", "Cyphering"...).
2. Engineer was defaulting to Mechanic.
3. Mathematics had none specializations.

Last edited by Alonsua; 07-10-2018 at 01:48 AM.
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