Steve Jackson Games Forums - View Single Post - Traveller-hot reactionless or cold?

DeadParrot · 11-10-2021, 05:32 PM

My assumption has been the most power plants on Traveller ships are fusion. A quick scan of the New Era book Fire Fusion and Steel has most of the normal TL for Traveller games using fusion for power plants. TL 6-8 show fission. TL 9-16 show fusion. TL 17-21 are antimatter. (page 64).

For a space ship, it could save some space and weight to just vent the hot fusion products out the back. What's a bit more heat and helium in space going to hurt? No real thrust, basically an exhaust pipe. Standard liftoffs from a star port are probably fairly slow affairs to limit the effects of hot fusion byproducts on the tarmac.

A lot of the tech details are left rather undefined. Guessing some of the artwork shows hot vents to make the scene seem more exciting.

As far as land craft, the power could come from a very compact fission reactor or a mostly sealed Mr Fusion type thing.

11-10-2021, 05:32 PM	#8
DeadParrot Join Date: Apr 2012	Re: Traveller-hot reactionless or cold? My assumption has been the most power plants on Traveller ships are fusion. A quick scan of the New Era book Fire Fusion and Steel has most of the normal TL for Traveller games using fusion for power plants. TL 6-8 show fission. TL 9-16 show fusion. TL 17-21 are antimatter. (page 64). For a space ship, it could save some space and weight to just vent the hot fusion products out the back. What's a bit more heat and helium in space going to hurt? No real thrust, basically an exhaust pipe. Standard liftoffs from a star port are probably fairly slow affairs to limit the effects of hot fusion byproducts on the tarmac. A lot of the tech details are left rather undefined. Guessing some of the artwork shows hot vents to make the scene seem more exciting. As far as land craft, the power could come from a very compact fission reactor or a mostly sealed Mr Fusion type thing.