TL5 Dirigible based on Spaceships help wanted
 

Realistic SM+9 Long Range Exploration Dirigible Maximum Speed 17.3 mph

1! (1/9 size) Plane Prop 0.02 G per Power Point maximum 0.0012 G
Workstations 3 Price ?
(8/9) of a system ?


2 Gasbag 900 tons lift $1 million Volatile Hydrogen

3 Gasbag 900 tons life $1 million Volatile Hydrogen

4 Control Room Stations 6 Workstations 3 Sensor/Comm 3 $6 Million

5 Steam Engine 0.02 Power Points Workstations 3 $1.5 Million

6 Steam Engine 0.02 Power Points Workstations 3 $1.5 Million

Core Habitat Cabins 40 Workstations 3 $3 Million



1 Steam Engine 0.02 Power Points Workstations 3 $1.5 Million

2 Cargo Fuel Tank $350K

3 Cargo Fuel Tank $350K

4 Anchors/Gangplank $300 thousand (based on clamps)

5 Cargo Fuel Tank $350K

6 Cargo Fuel Tank $350K



1 Gasbag 900 tons lift $1 Million Volatile Hydrogen

2 Gasbag 900 tons lift $1 Million volatile Hydrogen

3 Craft Shop Lighter Than Air Mechanic +3 (10)
Sick Bay Clinic +3 10 (10)
Lab Biology/Chemistry/Geology (2+2+2)
Briefing Room (2)
Workstations 3
$3 million + $3 Million



4 Habitat Cabins 40 Workstations 3 $3 Million

5 Cargo 7.5k man days Water 25k man days of food
Workstations 3 (normally none but I assume coopers to keep
things safe) $150k plus supplies

6 Habitat Luxury Cabins 20 Workstation 3 $3 Million

Core! (1/9 size) Refinery for Water into Hydrogen and "waste" oxygen
$333K
Workstations 3
(8/9 System) Cargo 133 1/3 tons

No life support so gets double cabins.
No computers or radios. Uses heliographs.
Lacks automation so workstations increased by 3 But HT13
Nautical lines to account for balloons' massive surface area.
Top Deck
Assuming endurance similar to fuel cells but at 1/50th the output leads to a maximum time of 51 hours leading to a maximum range of 882 miles between refueling.
100 cabins may seem like a lot but this thing lacks the automation to pilot itself during the night, so 8 hour shifts for everyone.

Total Workstation 33 Control Crew 6

$36.95 Million plus Plane Prop Cost, undetermined 8/9 system, and consumables

Re: TL5 Dirigible based on Spaceships help wanted
 

Looks interesting. I've a few questions/suggestions...

Plane Prop: Am I reading correctly, and the prop is actually getting 0.0004 G thrust per steam engine dedicated to it? No real suggestions here, just making certain I understand where you're coming from.

Extra Systems: Might as well carry extra fuel for the steam engines here so you can extend endurance a bit further (alternatively, you can make this into an area for storing things the exploration teams find). Is the dirigible expected to be burning wood, coal, or something else?

Fuel: Unless the dirigible is using something exotic, you could probably get away with storing the fuel as cargo, which would save a bit of money.

Refinery: Seems a bit large, particularly considering you can't even dedicate a full Power Point to it at a time. You could scale it down two steps (making it a 1/9 system, although I'd do that as 1/10) and still not have enough power to run it at full capacity.

Endurance: The presence of a refinery (and its title) implies this is meant to fly for longer than its endurance indicates. Is it expected to refuel itself by having its crew harvest lumber and the like? If so, some of those extra systems might be dedicated to some pulley systems for hauling people and objects up and down.

Re: TL5 Dirigible based on Spaceships help wanted
 

Uh oh, it looks like it should be 0.0012 G total.
Crap burgers! That makes it travel at a little under 9 miles per hour if I assume unstreamlined or 86.6 mph if streamlined but no top deck.
Streamlined with top deck results in a hair over 17 miles per hour.

Ooh good catch. Of course they might like to take samples with them.
As to what it's burning that's a bit up in the air, no pun intended.
If I knew how realistic 1/50th power of TL7 fuel cells was, I could hazard a guess. For the exploration motif with a nod to reason might mean charcoal from burnt wood.

You don't think it would burn through its fuel fast enough to require it placed in a tank designed for fast move through into the engines?

Another good catch I didn't think of despite doing the same thing with the plane prop.

I assumed harvesting of lumber, yes.
You don't think my gangplanks/anchors is enough for heavy duty hauling?

And thanks for the help.

Re: TL5 Dirigible based on Spaceships help wanted
 

Yeah, charcoal and coke were the main other things I was thinking of. I think charcoal is used mostly due to it not smoking too much; depending on how things are constructed, you might be able to get away with wood (although charcoal might be easier to shovel).

Point. $1M/system seems a bit steep just to be able to shovel the charcoal a bit faster, but without some other guide I guess it'll work. It's only a bit more than 1/10th of the price of the whole thing to add in the functionality to all 3 fuel systems, so might as well go for it.

Oops, brainfart. Yeah, the gangplanks+anchors will probably suffice. Be certain to have some of your cargo holds contain the necessary equipment for doing the harvesting! A rather large basin for scooping up lake water will probably be a good idea as well, both for drinking water and for splitting into hydrogen.

Oh, and another idea - would it be possible to store the "waste" oxygen? Assuming you are ending up with highly-concentrated O2, you could later feed that into your steam engines' furnaces (via some bellows system) to boost the heat and maybe get a bit more power - and thus thrust - out of it. You could store the oxygen until you need to get somewhere a bit faster than normal, then "red-line" the engines.
Of course, considering red-lining probably won't get much more than an additional mph out of it, it might be a waste of time...

No problem. I may end up stealing this for myself at some point, so I'm not being entirely altruistic here.

Re: TL5 Dirigible based on Spaceships help wanted
 

Just living wood is over half water which not only doesn't give energy but actively steals it by turning into steam where you don't want it.



After thinking about it for a moment, I see that cargo prices might be more sensible.



Sounds dangerous for just a smidge more power....
I like it. But what could be done with TL5 technology?

Re: TL5 Dirigible based on Spaceships help wanted
 

I'm banned permanently from the chatter and geek forums.
Could someone ask what TL5 could do with oxygen, pressurizing, uses, etc.?

Re: TL5 Dirigible based on Spaceships help wanted
 

Right, freshly harvested wood and all that. In that case, either dry out the wood or turn it into charcoal (charcoal's probably faster).

It's not exactly a deal-breaker either way ($33M vs $37M), but it's your call.

It's a fun idea, but the risk probably far outweighs the slight benefit.
I'd expect any culture that can manage to purify and hold hydrogen could do the same with oxygen, although I could be quite mistaken. Pressurized air canisters are possible - they were used for air guns, after all.

An interesting idea, if you can insure they don't blow up, is to give your harvesting team pressurized oxygen canisters. With some manipulation of the environment, it might be possible to use these to make an oxygen-rich "pit" of some sort, where it would be a good deal easier to start a fire using the green wood you just harvested (so you can have fires both for cooking and turning what you've harvested into usable charcoal fuel). Of course, more mundane means - like just bringing down some of your charcoal with you - would probably work better and be safer. We may just have to give up on the concept of using the waste oxygen, which is a real shame (too bad SCBA and SCUBA are still 2 TL's away, or you could use it for exploration of hostile environments).

Re: TL5 Dirigible based on Spaceships help wanted
 

All the threads about making bows tells me that drying wood properly takes a stupidly long time.



No waffling, or I'll start to second guess you. ;)



It just screams for a use. But boring realism would make any sane captain nix the ideas.
Still could be used for medical purposes for a realistic but nevertheless anachronistic feeling.
How much more power could oxygen pumped burners yield at a guess?
X2 or X1.5 power with maybe X5 or X10 fuel use as numbers pulled out of thin air?
Know any metallurgists? :)

Re: TL5 Dirigible based on Spaceships help wanted
 

The issue with scuba is the regulator to adjust the percentage of oxygen below sea level's 0.2 bars which has little to do with attaining pure oxygen.

OT: while searching I found a cobbled together compressed air powered bicycle.

Re: TL5 Dirigible based on Spaceships help wanted
 

From my bicycle thread, Malloyd put the modern style at TL5, so we can stock this balloon with a few mountain bikes for an extra alterna-tech feeling.

Re: TL5 Dirigible based on Spaceships help wanted
 

Seasoning wood takes a stupidly long time. You could just let it get warm and evaporate the water in a much shorter timespan (I've done this personally with wet wood while camping; just put it near the fire for awhile and it'll dry out enough that you can use it). It would probably take a good deal of time with green wood, and you'd probably get really crappy (for purposes of making stuff) wood out of it, so just stick with charcoal.

Alright then, no charge. If you really think they'd be specially (and expensively) designed for rapid transit, I'd charge $1M for the whole thing ($250K/system).

I've heard it can be used to clear hangovers and/or the effects of certain recreational drugs, so some of the sailors might find a use for it in that regard (particularly if they tend to experiment with discovered plants and the like). As a result of this reputation, captains and/or expedition party leaders might keep an oxygen tank on hand so they can breathe it to "clear their minds" when they feel the need. It might also be thought that breathing it will allow one to recover more readily from fatigue, and thus be carried (and breathed every so often) on long marches.
Hey, nobody said it had to truly be useful, just so long as there is a perceived use. Of course, you can also opt to let it work as the characters think - giving positive TDM's on IQ-based checks and increasing FP regeneration (or decreasing its expenditure). Fortunately, it won't really be pure oxygen at TL5 (impurities, notably water, will likely get in the mix), so it shouldn't dry out the lungs too much.

I've got no clue, and I don't know any metallurgists sadly. All you're really doing, however, is burning things hotter, which should probably actually give you better efficiencies, rather than worse (efficiency gets better as the difference in temperature between source and sink increases). Off-hand, I'd say you might be able to get away with 1.5x power with ~1.4x fuel expenditure with a lot of oxygen - maybe a full gasbag's worth burned over the course of merely an hour!

These numbers, like yours, are pretty much from thin air. Maybe someone else will come along who has a better idea?

That is awesome. Did TL5 have mountainbike equivalents? You're going to need some rugged tires, unless you're intending to use the bikes only at civilized stops.

You might be able to downgrade some of the bits and use something like this to escort the various bicycle expeditions as support.

Re: TL5 Dirigible based on Spaceships help wanted
 

That quadracycle is awesome. But alas as a first generation gas engine it's definitely TL6. An even weirder one powered by compressed air would be possible if inefficient and clunky. Perfect for an overfunded gadget loving expedition type endeavor.

I imagine making a one speed mountain bike wouldn't be that much more difficult than a multi-speed one. Also, solid rubber tires would be hardier and easier to make.

As to using oxygen to increase efficiency and power. 1.5/1.4 seems as sensible as any other set of numbers until and unless we hear from someone with even a modicum of expertise.

Re: TL5 Dirigible based on Spaceships help wanted
 

Looking at fuel I found a nice chart of BTU.
1 ton coal 16.2 million to 26 million
1 ton wood 9 million to 17 million
I imagine with coal's greater density than wood you could get much more out of a specific volume compared to wood. Whoops. Apparently they are around the same density.

1 gallon (I assume american) kerosene 135K
about 39.6 million per ton.

1 gallon gasoline 125K