I'm a Battletech fan, and whenever I see HPG I am thinking Hyper-Pulse Generator, the FTL comm system that is used in Battletech (50-ly range, near-instant transmission speed to send a radio pulse).
What does HPG mean in Tverse?
Todd Kes
OOC: BT has its own power generation for FTL travel problems as well. It can take a ship ~180 hrs at 10 AU to recharge its FTL core via sunlight (using a solar panel assembly ~50 km wide to start with, then later dropped to only a km or 2 in width). Or it can use 1 Burn-day of fuel (enough fuel to propel the ship for 1G for 1 day). In the case of one of the smallest Jumpships, that is just under 3 tons of Hydrogen (protium) fuel.
--- On Sat, 2/25/12, John Potter wrote:
Thanks Antony. I hadn't realized the HPG was part of J-Drive already.
I was envisioning a system like;
Power Plant -> HPG (stand alone) -> Jump DrivePower Plant output scales to increase/decrease HPG capacity charge rate
HPG installed accounts for the Mj needed for the maximum jump capability of the Jump Drive.Jump Drive size can stay the same size listed in FF&S for easy of ship fitting.This, unless I am off base, should provide an over all volume savings by not requiring as vast of fuel storage by virtue of;
Power Plant TL improvements seem to scale better than the Jump Drive.HPG TL improvements seem to scale better than the Jump Drive.Jump Drive charge time per the rules is 1d6 minutes
In my system the charge time is fixed based on the Electrical output of Power Planet. So as long as the power plant can bring the HPG to max capacitance for the maximum distance the Jump Drive is rated for, you should save on interior space overall for the ship due to not needing the raw fuel to be present. (Or is my understanding of TL 15 systems totally off?)
Some volume would still be needed for fuel to expend on the Power Plant and Sublight Drives in my outlined scenario.
In this way the Power Plant simply charges the HPG only when needed then discharges into the Jump Drive which per your explanation seems to be doing already but is an odd way because of the fixed % of the drive volume value
Where does the reference for the HPG in the Jump Drive come from? I would like to read around it to see what else I might be missing that may be there?