Ship Power Plants

First of all, there should be 2 main classes:

Burning and Nuclear.
-Nuclear would be separated into two more sub-classes: fission and fusion. These would be done in some sort of compact on-board supercollider. Around the area where the various atoms are split and fused would be some sort of paneling for collecting stray atomic components thus collecting energy and protecting people and components on-board the ship. Particles could also be collected to be shot out of the back of the ship for propulsion. Maybe the reactor could also be used to produce ant-matter for weapons as well.

-Burning is basically just using a very efficient type of fuel that is, well, burned for power and propulsion. These can include a highly refined type of rocket fuel, some sort of mineral that is found in comets or asteroids, or maybe even something highly dangerous and rare like anti-matter.

Please comment and feel free to tweak/add-on to this idea.

I think you are kind of limiting the technology to not that distant future. Perhaps a plasma reactor of some other futuristic reactor? That would certainly fit considering it's Futurecraft, don't you think?

Well where would you get the plasma from? The only other way would be sucking it from the inside of a star.

Not exactly. It could be a side product of, say, nuclear fusion. If the fusion of the two metals were in a reactor that had a gas in it, then depending on the amount of energy released, it could ionize the gas to produce plasma ( which in effect is what a star does near its core).

For a power source, this could be useful though i'm not sure ( IRL there has been very little research done on the use of plasma as a fuel, though there are definitely uses in manufacturing and mechanical use).

this has been discussed a number of times. There's been a few ideas dropped but what I think is going to be the winner will be a smaller reactor.

The reactor will be powered by a fuel rod of some sort, uranium or plutonium made from raw materials.

The purpose of a smaller power generator is to allow people to build a custom and modular power system. You'll be able to link up power supplies to increase your maximum power output.

For instance, a player will be able to build a power reactor that puts out 1000 a/u of power a minute or 60 a/u a second. Then they'd be able to link a number of these together to get a higher a/u per second output and thus power more subsystems.

That's the basic principal of the power systems so far. I'm thinking as larger and larger ships come into the design spectrum, we'll find a need to have different scales of power supplies, like you could build a large reactor for a battleship where as a frigate would only need a small one etc.

The plasma design probably isn't going to fly for physics reasons, how does one harness plasma? But who knows, this is FutureCraft, we might just make up some BS to make it possible

ectrimble20 wrote:

The plasma design probably isn't going to fly for physics reasons, how does one harness plasma? But who knows, this is FutureCraft, we might just make up some BS to make it possible

Heh Heh Heh.... uhhhh, depends on what 'plasma' one whats to harness. On further research ( yes i know its a game so it doesnt entirely have to be real but ...) plasma has different temperatures based on which gas is being ionized. The aurora borialis has its plasma only at 100 K, which in theory can be harnessed ( or atleast caught) by a tungsten container as its melting point is up at 3500 K, so harnessing it in theory is not that big of a problem... and any ship firing lasers create plasma as soon as it hits the opposing ship due to it ionizing the oxygen in the ships atmosphere.

Interesting. I wonder what the power output capabilities of a low temp plasma would be? I've heard of cold fusion (which is basically cold plasma) being used to create fields of energy or plasma windows, I don't however have much knowledge about the power output capabilities of plasma.

Will be an interesting thing for me to put a little book time into.

I didn't think that "plasma" was an energy source. I thought it was a state of matter.

it can be used as an energy source.

http://www.eurekalert.org/features/doe/2003-05/dnal-bpt051203.php

The good thing about plasma is that because of its extremely high temperature, the fission / fusion reactions of its atoms are instantaneous, produce massive amounts of energy and can run for a fair amount of time depending on the moles of plasma there are.

GroundBurg_Coder13 wrote:

Not exactly. It could be a side product of, say, nuclear fusion. If the fusion of the two metals were in a reactor that had a gas in it, then depending on the amount of energy released, it could ionize the gas to produce plasma ( which in effect is what a star does near its core).

For a power source, this could be useful though i'm not sure ( IRL there has been very little research done on the use of plasma as a fuel, though there are definitely uses in manufacturing and mechanical use).

Mate, you sir are a legend, you know that?

Looking through Michio Kaku's Physics of the Impossible and Hyperspace ( talking about the physics of futuristic theories ), im wondering for power plants whether for like a final tier thing ( tier 10 ) whether a perpetual motion machine is a good idea?

Anyone who doesn't know, a perpetual motion machine is a machine that runs at 100% or greater efficiency, where no energy is lost in its use, or ( even better) more energy is created than lost in creating said energy. In Truth, this likely is never to happen unless the ability to harness the energy from alternate dimensions and universes are somehow determined to be possible.

Now the question is, are we trying to follow the laws of thermodynamics or are we using game 'science logic'?

GroundBurg_Coder13 wrote:

Looking through Michio Kaku's Physics of the Impossible and Hyperspace ( talking about the physics of futuristic theories ), im wondering for power plants whether for like a final tier thing ( tier 10 ) whether a perpetual motion machine is a good idea?

Anyone who doesn't know, a perpetual motion machine is a machine that runs at 100% or greater efficiency, where no energy is lost in its use, or ( even better) more energy is created than lost in creating said energy. In Truth, this likely is never to happen unless the ability to harness the energy from alternate dimensions and universes are somehow determined to be possible.

Now the question is, are we trying to follow the laws of thermodynamics or are we using game 'science logic'?

Again, please look up this stuff before posting it, perpetual motion is borderline impossible, and a perpetual motion machine MAKING energy literally IS impossible. However there are workarounds that do not involve alternate universes, like vaccume energy, and you would also know that alternate universes are theorised to require absolutely immense amounts of energy to go to(imagine 50 hypernovas(yes, thats a real thing, look it up), now imagine them all compressed into a 2 inch diameter sphere). And they don't even know if they can actually 'go' to them, that energy is just what's required to, in laymens terms, 'soften' the fabric of space-time.

Again, I really hate to be so harsh, but:

LOOK THIS STUFF UP!

Just to let you know, the idea HAD been looked up. How else would one know about it? Now yes it is pretty much impossible and even if it was, the energy required would be in the magnitude of 10^100000000000 TeraJoules of energy pointed at one point in space, but given that what we comprehend now as impossible may not be so in 10, 15, 20 generations ( like flying in the 1500's, they though it would be impossible for humans to fly, and now its used on a daily basis).

I merely suggested it because this is FUTURECRAFT, and this idea is pretty much the embodiment of the human ingenuity and our constant striving for perfection... and in science, this IS perfection of the grandest scale.

GroundBurg_Coder13 wrote:

Just to let you know, the idea HAD been looked up. How else would one know about it? Now yes it is pretty much impossible and even if it was, the energy required would be in the magnitude of 10^100000000000 TeraJoules of energy pointed at one point in space, but given that what we comprehend now as impossible may not be so in 10, 15, 20 generations ( like flying in the 1500's, they though it would be impossible for humans to fly, and now its used on a daily basis).

I merely suggested it because this is FUTURECRAFT, and this idea is pretty much the embodiment of the human ingenuity and our constant striving for perfection... and in science, this IS perfection of the grandest scale.

Ok, correction, throughly looked up and thought through.


And yeah its the future, but according to the universe, you can't make a real perpetual motion device that gives off energy.


And sure, you could always go to another dimension to harvest energy, yeah. You could also invent a time machine, go back and steal the only (multi-ton(and mult-million dollar)) Tsar bomb ever constructed, reverse engineer it, make the third stage real instead of lead(which would double the yield to 100 megatons of tnt), and then set up a satelite-based remote detonation system, drive 700 miles away, and then set it off to kill a fly that was annoying you. Only for the fly to live, mutate, come back for revenge, bite you, and mutate you into a immortal eldritch abominiation for you to live the rest of the livespan of the universe as in a fate far worse than death....

Yes, that's a accurate comparison to what could happen if you tried to get energy from another universe.

Alright, forget i ever said this idea. I now agree that this machine is imaginary, a construct of those who want nothing more than to prove that physics can be broken and to get rich, and in no possible way it would ever occur.

Now lets just leave it be.

GroundBurg_Coder13 wrote:

Alright, forget i ever said this idea. I now agree that this machine is imaginary, a construct of those who want nothing more than to prove that physics can be broken and to get rich, and in no possible way it would ever occur.

Now lets just leave it be.

Another victory in the name of Science! Another day, another person's impression of science corrected!

As for power, how about we go the conservative route? There could be solar panels, cheap but gl running anything big with them, quantum reactors, they provide a load of power over a short period of time but completely burn out after a minute or so, and finally the middleman; Fusion Reactors, safe(ish, destroying one won't blow up a ship but dont stand next to a breach if you enjoy not being irradiated, electrified, and burning alive), customizable, and multi sized. Fusion Reactors have three sizes, mini(think Ark), all-purpose(Sorta like ic2 reactors, different mechanics but similar size), and high-output.

All reactors accept different forms of fuel, most of which i'll reiterate on later, a few could be deuterium, hydrogen, lithium, and more. Each have different attributes, as well.

Tiny, premade, cheap, and pretty much un-customizible, these are for anything that needs power but a simple H-C-R crystal or solar panel won't do. Like all fusion reactors, it requires energy to start, which can be provided by a H-C-R crystal, afterwhich it will cotinue to run so long- yknow what, its late, im just gona leave this here and make a full thread in the morning, this idea is going to be effin complex, im typing this on a touchscreen, im tired, and I got 4 hours of sleep, gnight.

I think we should just use giant space horses and all fly around in giant space horse drawn carriages. that would solve this whole power plant issue we're having here

ectrimble20 wrote:

I think we should just use giant space horses and all fly around in giant space horse drawn carriages. that would solve this whole power plant issue we're having here

Genius. Thats just... brilliant.

Now- how do we get massive amounts of hay?

I personally like the idea of having reactors that require you to have some sort of fuel tank and plumbing to get to the reactor, and choosing to put the reactor in high-power mode means guzzling fuel and needing a robust system to cool coolant.

I did some research and although I was not able to find anything about a plasma reactor I was able to find a viable way of producing plasma. It turns out that this guy named Nikola Tesla invented a thing called a tesla coil. It produces large bolts of plasma that look like lightning. Maybe this could be a way of powering plasma reactors?

humm, well a tesla coil does technically produce plasma, however, it comes at a large and inefficient expensive of electricity. However (x2) I think in the future, electricity will be produced much more efficiently, especially once we get away from primitive things likes coal and other fossil fuels to produce electricity and move more towards harnessing solar and nuclear energies are larger scales. So I kinda like that idea, though I'm not sure how you'd transfer the power from a tesla coil to a plasma reactor, seems like that would be quite a challenge.

I don't get the point of turning lots of electricity into less Plasma then back into electricity unless it was some sort of weapon...

I dont think the tesla coil would be efficient as an energy source because it doesnt create electricity or energy it merely transfers it ( electricity is put into the motor/ turbine, it spins creating friction and from that static electricity, that is transferred to the metal coils or sphere ontop which acts as a capacitor, when the charge gets high enough/ too much, it is released into the air creating the plasma by ionizing it ( transfer of electrons and photons))

It would be better just to put the initial electricity into other systems, unless it was turned into a weapon that could somehow be accurately directed / aimed,( but it would only be used in an atmosphere, otherwise there are no particles for the electricity to travel through.

GroundBurg_Coder13 wrote:

( but it would only be used in an atmosphere, otherwise there are no particles for the electricity to travel through.

Particle weapons?

I'll save you a lengthy explanation as to why, but particle weapons are much stronger than lasers but suffer from beam inflation at longer distances.

They also use electrons(or if you really want some KICK, protons) and work in space and a atmosphere all the same.

Well I thought I put this in my other post, but I guess I didn't. Couldn't the engines of a ship be powered with plasma? I mean I really can't imagine something with that kind of power consumption being powered by a nuclear reaction. I like the idea of a tesla coil because it seems like it would fit in a futuristic mod. I am kind of imagining a 2x1 block that would work like a furnace and fill a tank with plasma.

Quote :

I dont think the tesla coil would be efficient as an energy source because it doesnt create electricity or energy it merely transfers it ( electricity is put into the motor/ turbine, it spins creating friction and from that static electricity, that is transferred to the metal coils or sphere ontop which acts as a capacitor, when the charge gets high enough/ too much, it is released into the air creating the plasma by ionizing it ( transfer of electrons and photons))

It would be better just to put the initial electricity into other systems, unless it was turned into a weapon that could somehow be accurately directed / aimed,( but it would only be used in an atmosphere, otherwise there are no particles for the electricity to travel through.

So... pretty much what I said?

Engines belong in another thread.

And we don't really have to have real physics behind every aspect of the game.