Life & Temperatures on Titan

[Flyndaran]

I think the only way for a human to be immune to cyanide would be to alter the mitochondria to not have or need a particular enzyme. It seems to be in nearly every living thing, even bacteria. But TL 10 could be able to cobble together a substitute.
Resistance though is a much easier thing to develop. Species of millipede produce cyanide as a defense and have a heightened tolerance to it.

[Anders]

Like I said, detoxifying enzymes work as well. Just don't eat anything that inhibits the enzymes - that's why grapefruit can play havoc with some medicines. Contains a compound that inhibits an enzyme in the intestine and the liver that metabolizes them.

[DataPacRat]

New question: What do you think an aircraft with both a gasbag and helicopter rotors would look like?


Given that Titan's clouds are opaque to visual light, I just spent some time doodling out a spy-aircraft with Spaceships, aiming to maximize stealthiness. Just about every drive and power-point system makes it easier to detect a hovering aircraft than just floating with gasbags, so I started with those. Titan's atmosphere doesn't have oxygen, and I'm guessing that the fusion air-ram from SS7 is pretty detectable (given the mention of it in 3e's Vehicles' sensors chapter), which seems to leave rotors as the stealthiest available movement option.

(In Mass Combat terms, what I ended up with comes very close to a Close Air Support aircraft; slightly cheaper but also providing C3I.)

Anyone care to suggest tweaks?


* Titanian surveillance balloon, Mark One
* SM+4, Streamlined: 10 tons, dST/HP 15, Hnd/SR 0/4
- Exposed Radiators
- Slower Industrial Systems
- Stealth (-8): $125k
- Dynamic Chameleon (-4 to detect with vision): $90k
- Winged: $50k
- Self Healing, 0.15 HP/day, $200k
* Systems:
3: Armor, Diamondoid, dDR 5/5/5: $300k
1: Control Room, C6 computer, comm/sensor 3, 0 control stations: $10k
- Advanced Interface (+1 Piloting): $50k
3: Defensive ECM: $300k
1: Tactical Array, level 5: $100k
4: Gasbags, 12 tons lift: $80k
1: Helicopter Rotors, 200 mph, req 1 pp: $30k
2: IR Masking (Pyr94p8, -8 to detect): $300k
3: Maneuver Enhancement (+3 Handling): $45k
1: Power Plant, Perpetual Motion, 1 PP: $60k
1: Weapon, Major Battery, Conventional Gun, Very Rapid Fire (2cm, 1,000 shots, 300 rpm, dDmg 6d*5, avg norm-scale damage 1,050): $100k
. [2cm ammo, 1,000 rounds: 0.25 tons, $25k]
* Cost so far: $1.84M
* Efficient Design (Pyr40p6, -1 SM to be detected or targetted): x2 final cost
* Total Cost: $3.68M (monthly maintenance $147.2k, monthly logistics $294.4k)
* Mass Combat TS: 7,800; Air, C3I

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by DataPacRat

New question: What do you think an aircraft with both a gasbag and helicopter rotors would look like?

It's been done, although not successfully.

[DataPacRat]

Originally Posted by johndallman

It's been done, although not successfully.

I see what my problem is - helicopters are just the closest that SS has to props and turbofans.

Comparing the Vehicles stats for all of those with the Spaceships numbers, I'm going to propose, for a SM+4 ship:
* Ducted fan: 2G thrust, needs 1 PP, max of 600 mph, $40k
* Electric turbofan: 0.5G thrust, needs 4 PP, no max speed, $50k

I'm basing that on these numbers...
* SS SM+4 jet engine system: 1,000 lbs, 1G aerial, $100k, 0.5 tons fuel per hour
* 1,000 lb TL7 turbo-ramjet: 4,666 lbs thrust, $100k, 233.3 gph (0.758 tons) jet fuel
* 1,000 lb TL8 turbo-ramjet: 6,000 lbs thrust, $100k, 270 gph (0.8775 tons) jet fuel
* 1,000 lb ducted fan: 2,455 kW, 9,820 lbs thrust, 10 cf, $40k, max 600 mph
* 1,000 lb electric turbofan: 2,933 lbs thrust, 8,212.4 kW, 20 cf, $50k, no max speed
... plus some half-remembered idea of a PP having something to do with 1 to 1.2 MWe per ton, and SM+4 systems being half-tons apiece.

Given that getting to 600 mph for a streamlined spaceship only takes a thrust of 0.0576G, then ducted fans cap out with a system 3 SM smaller than the ship as a whole. For a SM+4 ship, that looks like it'd work out to around $1.3k and 30 lbs - just about within rounding errors. I'm almost tempted to let any Spaceships winged craft be able to spend 1 PP to hit 600 mph in atmo, without needing to explicitly specify anything further. (An unstreamlined ship would need 5.8G, which would need 3 full-scale ducted-fan systems.)

Anyone have any nitpicks, or other further thoughts?


Edit: I think I messed up the kW to power-point conversion. For a SM+4 ship, one system is a half-ton, so a Power Point should be about, maybe just above, half a megawatt. Implying a one-system ducted fan needs 5 PP, and a one-system electric turbofan needs 16 PP. Does that seem more right?

[DataPacRat]

Originally Posted by DataPacRat

I'm not using the sort of superscience that permits neutrino comms.

I've been re-reading some of my sources for the particular sort of superscience I'm using; and it turns out that it might, in fact, be the sort of superscience that permits neutrino comms. (Specifically, the replacement/tweak to relativity is compatible with a particular model of what keeps various subatomic particles together; one description I've read is that "photons can be modelled as ribbons of EM fields with a particular degree of twisting, neutrinos have different twists; and electrons can be modelled as photons circling round and round in tight circles, kept together by [technobabble about high accelerations]".)

However, to stay compatible with some plot points already established, I just have to make it infeasible for a SM+4 ship to carry a neutrino comm, especially an AU-range one. So I think I'm going to skip all the ones listed in 4e's Ultra-Tech p45 as being too small, and go back to Vehicles; I'm thinking of only allowing "extreme-range" neutrino-comms (and just maybe "very-long range" ones). Given how completely different the transmitting and receiving mechanisms are, I'm also thinking of having the base comm unit only be a transmitter, and having to separately buy receivers as both "receive-only" and "very sensitive".

(That would be: Transmitter: 15 tons, 600 cf, $600k, 40 kW; Reciever: 300 tons, 12,000 cf (23 feet cubed), $600k, 20 kW; effective range between the two: about 10 AU.)

Plot-wise, I've already noted that sonarcomm tech is good enough to relay messages through Titan's subsurface ocean, so whoever's hiding out down there won't be completely isolated, even if comms are limited to the speed of sound. At $1.2M a pop, it's not a system that's going to be found in every homestead, or even every city... and since the range is no better than a much-less-expensive lasercomm, the use-cases are pretty thin indeed.

In fact, about the only plausible use-case I've thought of is "megacorp or government has a self-contained secret lab buried (literally) too deep to be found by hostile spies". (Which certainly provides some interesting potential for future plot points...) Can you think of any other uses?