 December 8, 2013 - 1:27pm | I've toyed with various ideas for long term voyage with KHs ships. One idea was a rip off of the Battle Star Galactica storyline- satharmeggedon has hit the frontier and a big ship for space Fleet is leading a rag tag fleet on a desperate journey. Most civilian ships will have ion engines and if one is a mining ship with an ore processing plant then it can mine ice bodies for more fuel. If there are 1 or more ag ships present and you exercise the save 10% of the harvest to replant with option then you'd have a continual food source. at least one star liner would give you a "resort" and be the high value realestate where the rich an powerful would really want to live. several freighters of course. and a jump tug to drag along some small military vessels (jump tug would need to be ion powered) In discussing the possibilities in the radioglyph thread about an abduction of a ship (Star Trek Voyager campaign rip off) it got me wondering which ship would be the most valuable to have on such a voyage? A mining ship which could always refuel itself if its ion powered or an ag ship which would always have food. Then I just happened upon an image of the Cygnus from the movie The Black Hole and i remembered that it had green houses as well as being an exploration ship. some significant weaponry. and parasite craft. So what if someone in the Frontier designed an large (heavy cruiser sized) ship with all these features mixed in. A digger shuttle and a down sized ore processor (not intended for profitable mining operations) that would replenish the ship's fuel bunkerage. plus a dome or two for growing plants and small protien rich animals on extended voyages. Labs and a full compliment of exploration equipment. Well stocked supply hold, a large compliment of support craft and landers. plenty of journey class cabins of crew or passengers. Call it the cygnus class explorer since the Black Hole's Cygnus is the inspiration. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 December 8, 2013 - 5:41pm | Well I had a smaller version. It was a freighter that carried passengers and held an agro bay, to sell food along the way. It would need to be ramped up and the mining element added. I put it under Adventures for Beginners. |
 December 8, 2013 - 6:57pm | Cool idea an Exploration Ship/Science Ship... also space is a very different medium to travel in, so it might be possible for a lost ship say in the Voyager type scenerio to possibly take elements from other ships in the Spiders graveyard and retro fit out of desperation... might not be the best retrofit but a it's an idea. "Never fire a laser at a mirror." |
 December 8, 2013 - 7:20pm | There is a company in the midwest I read about reciently that is growing meat in the lab. They held a demonstration recently where they ate pork and beef and were highlighting to the reporters how they were able to create texture so that it was not a mouth feel like pudding or tofu. This article made me quite excited as they highlighted how much less energy went into growing meat in the lab compaired to animal grown meat. The animal grown meat requires the enregy to farm the feed, planting, irrigating, harvesting, processing, etc. Then the energy to raise the animals, feeding, bedding, etc. Finally the energy to process the animal into meat, slaughter, butchering, packaging, etc. They also called out all the waste involved, feed plant waste, bedding waste, butchering waste. They have a convincing argument that this is a solution to feed the world. I see the frontier as having this technology well developed. Starships could easily have meat cell cultures in their food labs and would grow what they need. Then the plants desired would be grown hydroponically. This could be built into a large exploration ship like what was shown in B5 in the episode where the ship gets lost inside a jump gate and B5 sends a long chain of fighters into the jump gate to relay the jump gate beacon to the exploration ship and bring her back. -iggy |
December 8, 2013 - 7:47pm | I remember hearing about lab grown meat but had not seen anything on it. So a deep space exploration vessel much like the merchant cruiser in the Traveller adventure Leviathan, with a major lab section, a digger shuttle which will also be used to take geological samples, a hydroponics section, landers and support craft, machine shop attached to the engineering and tech section (its a deep space long range mission so you never know when you'll need to make your own replacement parts or tools). Not sure I would want to give this to the player characters to use but would certainly use it for an adventure like The Black Hole. A ship like this would have every contingency planned for so its kind of tough to challenge the PCs when they have this as their ride but when its crewed by a megolomaniac, his psychotic robotic minion, and army of disposible robots and a crew of lobotomized organic cybots then and a handful of mysteries then you got something. Plus I like the gothic feel of the original cygnus. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
December 8, 2013 - 8:34pm | What if the PCs are the crew of a scout vessel attached to an exploration vessel. The scout ship could be assault scout class. This could give them the adventures of a large exploration ship but without the benifits of control of the vessel. -iggy |
December 10, 2013 - 5:59am | Speaking of grown meat I'm suddenly reminded of Activision's Civilization, Call to Power game had a beef vat as an advanced city improvement which helped a city grow in game. I think I'll stat out a protien meat vat for a KH s ships and on planet. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 December 12, 2013 - 2:32pm | Another thought on this is veggie protein sythesized into meat-like substances. There is a company/lab in Europe working on creating a commercial process for this as we speak. The company is known as, unimaginatively, LikeMeat. http://www.likemeat.eu/ Actually is pretty cool. In earlier news articles they claimed to have the texture right, but still needed to work up the flavor. |
 December 19, 2013 - 1:39pm | I think a miltary vessel with atomic engines could still potentially scavenge fuel, it would just be much harder and if they found a source they might need to fill a cargo bay with radioactive materials. Or they could potentially build extra storage into a metal box that is bolted outside the hull of the ship. ----------------------------------------------- |
 December 19, 2013 - 2:09pm | I have no problem with them carrying extra (already refined) fuel in their cargo hold. I assume that it just remains in its shielded shipping container until needed. I also assume 1 cubic meter of storage needed for 1 fuel pellet to account for the shielded container. Ad Astra Per Ardua! My blog - Expanding Frontier Webmaster - The Star Frontiers Network & this site Founding Editor - The Frontier Explorer Magazine Managing Editor - The Star Frontiersman Magazine |
December 20, 2013 - 1:08pm | but you don't believe they could jerry-rig something to refine atomic fuel? Maybe even something they would have to deploy to the planetoid (as in set up a portable processing line) where they found the source radioactive materials? ----------------------------------------------- |
December 20, 2013 - 2:00pm | Jerry-rig? Not likely. However, I don't see why some sort of "mini refinery" couldn't exist that could be taken along. I'm sure they could do something but I don't know that you could get a high enough quality of refined material from a kludged toghether contraption. In then end though, it's up to the referee. Ad Astra Per Ardua! My blog - Expanding Frontier Webmaster - The Star Frontiers Network & this site Founding Editor - The Frontier Explorer Magazine Managing Editor - The Star Frontiersman Magazine |
December 20, 2013 - 2:20pm | Just did a quick look at refined uranium production. In order to get a 10cm cube (the size of a fuel pellet for an atomic engine) of 5% enriched uranium (that's refinement level we use in nuclear reactors), you need to mine about 70-100 tons of raw uranium ore. Then have all the technology to do the refinement. It's just something I don't see most ships carrying the materials (mining equipment, refinery, enrichment facility) to do. Much easier to just buy a bunch extra up front and store them. If you plan on being gone a long time and being out of supply, give up the accelration and use ion engines  . Those can be refilled from any gas giant quite easily.Ad Astra Per Ardua! My blog - Expanding Frontier Webmaster - The Star Frontiers Network & this site Founding Editor - The Frontier Explorer Magazine Managing Editor - The Star Frontiersman Magazine |
December 20, 2013 - 3:18pm | Got to say that I aggree with Terl Obar no jury rigging for this. However, the KHs book has a the ship based ore processor for mining ships which is intened for the nickel iron asteroids but perhaps you could rule that it would suffice to refine atomic fuel. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
December 20, 2013 - 3:42pm | I'd say that it would work to get the first stage of refinement done which is a factor of 800x refinement from the raw ore to the "yellowcake" stage that is about 0.7% enriched uranium (80% total uranium). It then takes a chemical change, gas chambers, centrifuges and such to move it from the 0.7% enrichment to the 3-5% enrichment needed to be used as reactor fuel. But again, that's my take on it. Ad Astra Per Ardua! My blog - Expanding Frontier Webmaster - The Star Frontiers Network & this site Founding Editor - The Frontier Explorer Magazine Managing Editor - The Star Frontiersman Magazine |
December 20, 2013 - 7:08pm | I agree with TerlObar. The extra to proceed to refined nuclear pellets is on the order of multiple refineries, each doing their specialized process. This would be a gargantuan ship and very inefficient to move around. Much cheaper energy wise to spread all this out and only move the finished products of each refinery. -iggy |
December 20, 2013 - 7:19pm | We'll for one it sounds like we are unnessisarily limiting the refining process to equivalents to our modern 20th century tech. Given the higher tech level it might be handwavable if the GM wanted it. I tought part of the initial premise was liken that to ST:V which means unplanned and military vessel. Of course this kind of game begs for it to be run non-canon where maybe Ion drives work more like atomic. ----------------------------------------------- |
 January 17, 2014 - 9:03pm | With a higher tech level there should be some way to refine uranium in a more efficient way. The GM can create some type of portable fuel refinery. Make it expensive and a one shot use item. So whatever the tech is, in an emergency it could be used and save the day, but the pc's will have to pay for it. |
January 18, 2014 - 9:02am | What about a ship with extra engines and rudundent engine systems... could you have an exploration ship with ion and atomic engines? The idea being it is going to find new cultures or locate old colonies and the tech level of those colonies or new cultures is a big question mark, so it is built with two engine systems. "Never fire a laser at a mirror." |
January 20, 2014 - 5:35am | i like the idea of having a ship with both Ion and Atomic engines... sort of the Atomics are reserved for emergencies (I.E. combat) but they can putter around for a really long time on Ionic power. I'd suggest the engines be some sort of new hybrid dual drive system so they don't actually take up much more space. ----------------------------------------------- |
 January 20, 2014 - 7:06am | The problem might be that you have to lug around a drive and it's fuel and not use it that much. |
January 20, 2014 - 7:23am | Yes it would take a little more storage space... but I'm suggesting that the engine be a prototype next generation engine that is dual functioned so that the only extra space needed would be for fuel storage. I would maybe assume that the standard design for an engine like that would not carry as much atomic fuel as a regular atomic only ship. This might nessessitate the crew to convert some space to store any extra attomic fuel they happen on or are able to refine. ----------------------------------------------- |
January 20, 2014 - 9:12am | If you were looking for a little extra performance for just in case of combat than chemical engines might be the ticket. Ship putters around on ion and has a chemical booster that is there for just in case sort of situations. Unless of course you wanted a Q ship that acted like a ion drive ship including projecting an ion window but had the high ADF & MR for combat but Q ships are another thread. Having thought it awhile the cygnus should either have a big atomic fuel bunker or just go ion and have a digger shuttle and small processing planr to refuel on ice obects expected to be found in the outer system. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
January 20, 2014 - 9:15am | I guess it may be able to harvest hydrogen from space and use it as booster fuel. |
January 20, 2014 - 9:19am | Yes it would take a little more storage space... but I'm suggesting that the engine be a prototype next generation engine that is dual functioned so that the only extra space needed would be for fuel storage. I would maybe assume that the standard design for an engine like that would not carry as much atomic fuel as a regular atomic only ship. This might nessessitate the crew to convert some space to store any extra attomic fuel they happen on or are able to refine. I'm guessing that drives weigh more than fuel, so lugging around an atomic engine and fuel that is only used occasionally may be not be a viable option, unless your ion drive can gather extra fuel en-route by some means or other. |
January 20, 2014 - 10:40am | Anyone want to take a stab at how much of a fuel savings a hydrogen scoop would be? Perhaps it could be a new equipment listing in the magazine. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
January 20, 2014 - 12:03pm | Yes it would take a little more storage space... but I'm suggesting that the engine be a prototype next generation engine that is dual functioned so that the only extra space needed would be for fuel storage. I would maybe assume that the standard design for an engine like that would not carry as much atomic fuel as a regular atomic only ship. This might nessessitate the crew to convert some space to store any extra attomic fuel they happen on or are able to refine. I'm guessing that drives weigh more than fuel, so lugging around an atomic engine and fuel that is only used occasionally may be not be a viable option, unless your ion drive can gather extra fuel en-route by some means or other. I don't see why it is not a viable option. The Ion drive gives you economy of fuel and also most importantly the abiltiy to reful lon your own from many sources. While the stowing the Atomic pellets gives you a highly effective engine when you need it most. Its very effective particularly for a ship that is meant to go on mission for a long duration... or have the fates aligned against it and have it misjump into the delta quadrant. ----------------------------------------------- |
January 21, 2014 - 3:12am | It depends on whether the trade-off for carrying that extra weight is worthwhile. There's also the question of added cost. I'm not saying it's not doable, but pointing out that it's not necessarily practical. For example, take a look at early attempts at V/STOL aircraft that made use of two engines for seperate purposes. |
January 21, 2014 - 11:16am | Well... as I understand it... Ionic drives work by exciting particles and then magnetically guiding them through a nozzle which causes the push. Atomic engines do the same thing really except they create a fusion (or is it fission) reaction that then has its exloding energy forced out a nozzle... So my suggestion is a new generation of DUAL functioning engine that is both Atomic and Ionic. Just not exactrly at the same time. So I'm not saying it would have seperate engines, just higher tech dual function engines... I was suggesting that it be a prototype for the Voygeresque game I was thinking about here. ----------------------------------------------- |
January 21, 2014 - 11:41pm | It might work if the atomic part of it didn't run the risk of damaging the ion part over time. |
