Jump Distance

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by cptbutton

I suspect that the writers knew that nuclear fusion was much more energy dense than chemical combustion, but thought that meant it was 100 or 1000 times better, when it is more like 1,000,000 times better.

If the jump drives are using that much hydrogen, you need a lot of hand-waving to explain why any world with a grounded Beowulf doesn't have effectively unlimited energy too cheap to meter.

It's pretty clear in the early rules that the 'fuel' wasn't just for fusion, but coolant and who knows what else. The amount required had nothing to do with the designers not knowing how power dense fusion fuel is and everything to do with it being a limit on starships and ship design. The jump fuel requirement being so large is there to require ships to stop at worlds to refuel, and to make long ranged ships pay a large cost for that range (in reduced capabilities in all other areas).