In our drive discussions we've had statements from 'there's no way to do this
without violating energy conservation, there's just not that much energy in a
ton of hydrogen fusion' to 'the energy in a ton of hydrogen fusion is
infinitessimal to the amount needed, our drives must be horribly inefficient'.
My feeling is that over the changes in TL we should plan for a continum from
one extreme to the other in TDR, from where the drives are horribly
ineffiecent, to where you never fill your fuel tanks. I think we should plan
rules to cover differing technologies of space drives. It might be that you
have campaigns that use ion, fusion and fission rocket in the same game.
One other thought. It might be that only a small part of the hydrogen used in
a spacecraft is fused. It might be that the majority is used in the rocket as
reaction mass. Possibly at some TL's it might be required for cooling
purposes.
On the other end of the spectrum, most people assume that the energy is from
the fusion of hydrogen to helium. Has anyone considered fusion other elements,
or fusing multiple elements at high TL?
Jim Baranski
Norwich CT