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The Traveller jump drive is essentially a fusion power plant and bank of capacitors.
I've found conflicting information, but it would appear that all of the jump fuel is consumed prior to jump. Drop tanks are canon and they don't work otherwise.
One source says "about an hour" between jumps if you have the fuel.
So a Type S has to move 270,000 liters of liquid hydrogen in an hour.
At about 2m per second that needs about a 10" pipe.
I seem to remember that a jump can take place in a single 20 minute combat turn, so we're going to need a bigger pipe than that!
If we move it faster, just over 3m per second we can get away with a 12" pipe. 17" if we don't speed up the flow.
12" pipe fits with my mental image of how the engineering spaces look.
I ponder the solar sail concept once used in various Sci-Fi books to charge the jump drive and drop ships without FTL drive for trading-combat and exploration.
ReplyDeleteNot like hydrogen fuel was everywhere. The Type S had capability to refuel from wilderness supplies, but I seem to recall some issues with unrefined fuels?
If you don't have a fuel purification plant, but do have fuel scoops you can refuel but have an increased chance of a misjump.
DeleteAnnic Nova had a system of charging the jump capacitors without using fuel for the jump.
There's rules for using the energy absorbed by a black-globe generator to power a jump too.