Fusion plants

spin off from obsolete SDs thread

simple question: just how many fusion plants does an modern Sd/ SD(P) have?

from the early books anything smaller then a BC can fight and move one plant with a second as a backup (didn't i see somewhere that in universe there were questions why the Star Knights had a 3rd plant when it was never used?).

I'm sure it was said that a Reliant BC had 3, hence why replacing one of Nike's was a small but also big deal at the same time, as with the 2 working plants it still had enough so it could move and fight, there was just no back-up.

An SD even then was almost 10 times the size, and many times the firepower. Did they use a few (4?) hugely more powerful plants, which would enable them to put more protection over those areas. or did they use several smaller ones to reduce the odds of critical power loss if one was knocked offline?

also how many reactors do modern ships have? Mk 16/23's etc need a lot of power to start their on-board systems and the the energy weapons the small combatants are using are more powerful then before, not sure if the reduced number of them balances out the increased power they must draw. plus Sag-C are almost old BC size , so do they still have that third plant? the new BC are more then twice the size of a reliant were extra plants needed?

sorry it is a bit of a silly question, a fairly minor thing but it has been annoying me for a while.

Dauntless wrote:spin off from obsolete SDs thread

simple question: just how many fusion plants does an modern Sd/ SD(P) have?

from the early books anything smaller then a BC can fight and move one plant with a second as a backup (didn't i see somewhere that in universe there were questions why the Star Knights had a 3rd plant when it was never used?).

I'm sure it was said that a Reliant BC had 3, hence why replacing one of Nike's was a small but also big deal at the same time, as with the 2 working plants it still had enough so it could move and fight, there was just no back-up.

An SD even then was almost 10 times the size, and many times the firepower. Did they use a few (4?) hugely more powerful plants, which would enable them to put more protection over those areas. or did they use several smaller ones to reduce the odds of critical power loss if one was knocked offline?

also how many reactors do modern ships have? Mk 16/23's etc need a lot of power to start their on-board systems and the the energy weapons the small combatants are using are more powerful then before, not sure if the reduced number of them balances out the increased power they must draw. plus Sag-C are almost old BC size , so do they still have that third plant? the new BC are more then twice the size of a reliant were extra plants needed?

sorry it is a bit of a silly question, a fairly minor thing but it has been annoying me for a while.

If I recall correctly three is pretty standard for combat ships.They just get bigger reactors.

pnakasone wrote:

Dauntless wrote:spin off from obsolete SDs thread

simple question: just how many fusion plants does an modern Sd/ SD(P) have?

from the early books anything smaller then a BC can fight and move one plant with a second as a backup (didn't i see somewhere that in universe there were questions why the Star Knights had a 3rd plant when it was never used?).

I'm sure it was said that a Reliant BC had 3, hence why replacing one of Nike's was a small but also big deal at the same time, as with the 2 working plants it still had enough so it could move and fight, there was just no back-up.

An SD even then was almost 10 times the size, and many times the firepower. Did they use a few (4?) hugely more powerful plants, which would enable them to put more protection over those areas. or did they use several smaller ones to reduce the odds of critical power loss if one was knocked offline?

also how many reactors do modern ships have? Mk 16/23's etc need a lot of power to start their on-board systems and the the energy weapons the small combatants are using are more powerful then before, not sure if the reduced number of them balances out the increased power they must draw. plus Sag-C are almost old BC size , so do they still have that third plant? the new BC are more then twice the size of a reliant were extra plants needed?

sorry it is a bit of a silly question, a fairly minor thing but it has been annoying me for a while.

If I recall correctly three is pretty standard for combat ships.They just get bigger reactors.

According to the semi-cannonical Jayne's books,the four older SD and DN designs mentioned (King William, Majestic, Duquesne, Neaveau Paris) have 5 reactors each, and the one BB design mentioned (Trimumphant) has 4. All BCs mentioned have 3. Most CAs have 2 reactors except RMN CAs starting with the StarKnight which have 3 reactors. All FGs, DDs, and CLs have 2 reactors.

No modern construction is listed so what a SD(p) mounts has never been mentioned.

Is there a limit on the maximum size of an efficient gravity pinch fusion reactor?

pnakasone wrote:Is there a limit on the maximum size of an efficient gravity pinch fusion reactor?

I don't believe it has ever been mentioned, though it has been said that efficiency per plant has been increasing. Even so, multiple plants is more a measure of redundancy and damage resiliency than anything else.

pnakasone wrote:Is there a limit on the maximum size of an efficient gravity pinch fusion reactor?

I vaguely recall reading somewhere that those reactors actually got more efficient with larger size...
And cant recall ever seeing anything about a limit.

Dauntless wrote:
simple question: just how many fusion plants does an modern Sd/ SD(P) have?

Well if some of the other posters are correct that the few known DN/SD's pre-pod era had 5 fusion plants, then I would guesstimate a podnought having 4. They lose anywhere upto around 30% of their core hull for rails, and they tend to put the fusion plants as close to dead center as possible, which is going also where the rails go.

Dauntless wrote:from the early books anything smaller then a BC can fight and move one plant with a second as a backup (didn't i see somewhere that in universe there were questions why the Star Knights had a 3rd plant when it was never used?).

I'm sure it was said that a Reliant BC had 3, hence why replacing one of Nike's was a small but also big deal at the same time, as with the 2 working plants it still had enough so it could move and fight, there was just no back-up.

pre-Star Knight era heavy cruisers could get by with just 1 reactor, but I think they may still have mounted three simply for battle redundancy and spreading the load. And the Reliant's had three mounted, but they required two just to stay battle capable.

This gives a pretty good feel that battleships and wallers would require four plus simply to keep powered, with one or more full reactors for redundancy. Since we also know that there's a fair hefty tonnage spike going from battlecruisers to battleships, it's only fair to assume that some to most of that tonnage is more for the fusion plants, weapons and sidewalls than just armor increases.

Somtaaw wrote:pre-Star Knight era heavy cruisers could get by with just 1 reactor, but I think they may still have mounted three simply for battle redundancy and spreading the load. And the Reliant's had three mounted, but they required two just to stay battle capable.

Previous CAs had 'only' 2 fusion plants. Even the Star Knights only required 1 to operate, plus a spare.

However, they were being designed under the Enhanced Survivability Programme. As such, it was considered the loss of a power plant to damage from laser heads was high enough to justify an additional fusion plant. Early operational service revealed that wasn't the case at the time. HoS suggests not much has changed in that respect.

Since one of the fusion plant's failure mode is destroying the ship, there an interesting trade off between redundancy and survivability. Extra plants means it's easier to keep the lights on when power runs are cut but they also mean it's easier for a fusion bottle to fail catastrophically.

noblehunter wrote:Since one of the fusion plant's failure mode is destroying the ship, there an interesting trade off between redundancy and survivability. Extra plants means it's easier to keep the lights on when power runs are cut but they also mean it's easier for a fusion bottle to fail catastrophically.

Also having more plants also means that its an easier decision to scram a plant that is showing signs of problems before it gets a chance to fail catestrophically