I just thought of a way to get around the slow purification plant/
2 hour zucchini (or whatever) crystal limit. This time, it's all
kosher with the rules. I don't have MegaT yet so I can't do any
exact calculations (George, you feel up to it?).
Who says you have to purify your fuel "on the fly"? If you put
in a moveable partition between the refined and unrefined fuel
(like maybe two "bladders" which can expand to fill the entire
fuel tank), you can refine H2O or NH3 before you start your jump.
You wouldn't be able to refine it all, but you could string two small
jumps together to go further than you normally can.
Example:
Since I don't have Mega-T, I'm going to ignore power plant and
maneuver drives. Their fuel capacity should help out though by
letting you "steal" some of that space to put refined fuel in.
Take a jump-3 trader. The captain gets a hot tip that would
let him make a hefty profit on his latest cargo. Unfortunately,
the destination is 4 parsecs away. Never fear. The captain
fills 77.5% of his tanks with ammonia. This is enough hydrogen
for a jump-4. He purifies enough to make a jump-1 (19.4%).
This LH2 occupies 33% of the fuel tank, while the leftover
ammonia takes up 58.1% (77.5%-19.4%). So everything fits.
After the jump-1, the captain purifies the rest of the ammonia
until his tanks are filled. He then makes his jump-3 and is
promptly killed by pirates because he has no maneuver drives. :-)
If William Dow Rieder's scout ship numbers are right, let's see...
202.5 kl of Jump fuel, 311.04 kl of power plant fuel...
Total fuel capacity = 513.54 kl. Since the purification plant
can keep up with the power plant, store the power plant fuel as
ammonia. This cuts down its volume from 311.04 kl to 180.84 kl.
You now have 513.54-180.84 = 332.7 kl left for jump fuel.
Even if you go with straight LH2, you have enough space for
three parsecs worth of fuel (101.25 kl Lh2 for one parsec).
If you go with ammonia, you can put in 235.48 kl (four parsecs)
in. Purify half of that to leave 117.74 kl of ammonia and
202.50 kl of LH2. They total 320.24 kl so it all fits. Do
your first jump-2, then you still have enough methane left
(er, ammonia, sorry) for another jump-2.
In fact, you're just 4.03 kl short of being able to do a jump-1,
jump-2, jump-2. If you really wanted to go five parsecs, you'd
only have to give up 4 cubic meters of cargo or power plant fuel
space.
- --
John H. Kim
[email removed]
[email removed]