Antimatter... Engineering?

[MaryAnn]

This is brief. What's the Engineer specialty to design Antimatter Reactors or Engines?

[Refplace]

I would say Engineer (Antimatter Reactor) based off Mechanic (Powerplant Type). Mechanic defaults to Engineer (same)-4 even though the examples dont exactly maych up.

[Ulzgoroth]

Hmm, the Characters specialty list doesn't offer anything that appears to cover power plants (except via the vehicle type option).

Personally, I'd be tempted to add Engineer (Power Plant) if I was trying to match the scope of existing examples and Engineer (Nuclear) if I wasn't. Engineer (Antimatter Reactor) seems much narrower than other specialties.

High Tech: Electricity and Electronics p6-7 takes the position that electrical power plants count as 'electrical systems' and as such are maintained and built by Electrician and designed by Engineer (Electrical). OTOH its gear list only seems to stake a clear claim for that referring to electromechanical, electrochemical, or photoelectric generators - not heat engines or other more involved systems to drive those generators. YMMV.

[Stormcrow]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Personally, I'd be tempted to add Engineer (Power Plant) if I was trying to match the scope of existing examples

I agree. Something like Engineer (Civil) is vast in scope, so a skill for designing power plants in general seems reasonable. If you want to specifically be a designer of just antimatter reactors, you can take an optional specialty: Engineer (Power Plants, Antimatter) IQ/A.

[Vikingv]

and you must have a Scottish accent as a perquisite.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Vikingv

and you must have a Scottish accent as a perquisite.

That just gives you a bonus to your Fast-Talk rolls to get the captain to believe your padded estimates.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by MaryAnn

This is brief. What's the Engineer specialty to design Antimatter Reactors or Engines?

For a TL11 space navy game, we had:

Engineer (Antimatter)
IQ/H; see pp. B190-191

This is the skill of designing and building antimatter reactors, rockets and warheads. Prerequisite: Physics.

Default: Mechanic (Antimatter Reactor)-6.

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

That just gives you a bonus to your Fast-Talk rolls to get the captain to believe your padded estimates.

To be fair to TOS Scotty (as opposed to Scotty in TNG Relics), the padded estimates are believably realistic as a safety margin (which a good engineer would want to have). So is shortening them, as e.g. when the Apollo 13 crew needed to power up the LM faster than intended.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Personally, I'd be tempted to add Engineer (Power Plant) if I was trying to match the scope of existing examples and Engineer (Nuclear) if I wasn't. Engineer (Antimatter Reactor) seems much narrower than other specialties.

I think so too. Though I normally use the terminology that showed up in most of the course titles for this sort of stuff when I was in college and call it Engineer (Energy Conversion). It covers most things where the primary design considerations are thermodynamics and having the whatsits operate in conditions where energy that would normally be sufficient to vaporize the parts is running about in the system.

[Not another shrubbery]

Originally Posted by Refplace

I would say Engineer (Antimatter Reactor) based off Mechanic (Powerplant Type). Mechanic defaults to Engineer (same)-4 even though the examples dont exactly maych up.

This looks right, by the book. It does feel a bit too narrow. I'd probably go with the section your working in (Power Plant) and your TL would cover what you're most familiar with, with defaults for other types off of that.