Quigg--
Good, I'm always glad when I make sense.
I like your idea, though, and as a possible way to tinker with it, you
could just assume, MHyd (Metallic storage of Hydrogen fuel) is possible at
say, TL 16 or 17. I pick those numbers because the existing FF&S systems
should take you up that high on the other starship systems that you would
match up with the MHyd ship. Or any other TL that still is low enough so
that the other ship systems have FF&S values you can use.
I would then be inclined to say, "Fuel Purification plants at that tech
level include the ability to compress LHyd to MHyd and back again", or
maybe double the size/power draw to be conservative.
Then you'd have to have rules for the MHyd tankage to keep it in its
metallic state. I don't know the density of MHyd compared to LHyd, but you
could work that out, and that would show you the tank size. Then you'd
have to work out the overhead required to keep the MHyd "tamped down" as a
percentage add-on to the tank size for magnetic, cooling stuff, plus the
power draw. Logically that would be similar in a lot of ways to the fusion
drive itself, as they are both compressing hydrogen, although the tankage
is doing so without allowing fusion to begin, which is probably the real
tricky part.
Finally, might want to allow some kind of staging tanking to bring a
quantity of Hyd back up to LHyd preparatory to using it as reaction mass.
Probably based on some number of G-turns at the ready, but also related to
how quickly your fuel purifiers need to expand/contract that mass. On the
other hand, it would also be logical to say, if we can store it in a
compressed state that is similar to the compressed state in which it will
be "burned" in the fusion drive, at this TL we don't have to mess with
reconverting it to LHyd, but can just inject it into the HEPlaR as is.
Probably want to think about that.
Then, and here is the sticky part, and will be intimately related to the
decisions made above, you'd get into the infinitely recursive part of
high-density starships, where you have to keep calculating and
recalculating ship's mass to get G performance. And finding out that
you've used way too much surface area on your exhaust and your passive
radiators for all of the power you've reinvested in.
Potentially an interesting thought experiment, though. But maybe once you
go to all this trouble you'd realize, "screw it, we've already got
matter/antimatter at this point, which is easier to work with."
Do the Star Wars ships claim to store hydrogen fuel in its metallic state?
If so, that seems quite a waste, as the one constant in SW ship designs is
that they are needlessly, showily big, with nothing really to take up all
that space. Not very many guns or fighters or troops or AT-ATs on board,
just lots and lots of long hallways leading off to nowhere (kind of like
the Seaview, now that I think of it). Might was well have big LHyd tanks
to fill out your deckplans.
Just some brain flatulence.
Dave
> Right on, makes great sense. Figured some base rules/assumptions had to
> be in place.
>
> I was thinking of sheer forces and other fun effects some years ago with
> meters of BSD plating and massive volumes of LHyd as the source background
> to a series of missions. Corrupt contractor, scandal/cover ups, etc.
>
> Thanks again for jumping back into the fray. Great fun going through this
> pent-up excitement.
>
> Just wish i had other tne players here, north of atlanta!
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Jun 27, 2012, at 12:59, wrote:
>