How are jump drive recharge times calculated? The Aurora begins the series requiring one hour of recharge for every light-year she can jump, but by Episode 15 her recharge time has been reduced. Obviously that has happened because of improvements made by the Corinarans and Takarans, but how are the number of hours necessary to achieve a certain level of charge determined?
In the Aurora
Ep.1: 10 hour charge to jump 10 Light years. Initially just Earth Tech
Ep.7: 7.5 hours charge to jump 15 Light years. With the introduction of new power transfer cables, emitters & Takaran Battery Cells.
(Directly powered Jumps fed by Dual Mini ZPED to 10 Light years. Not yet repeated in Large ships since the Aurora trials, except possibly the Avendalh)
Ep.15: 15 hours charge (7.5 hours charge with everything else turned off/ funneling everything to the 2x sets of cell banks) to jump 3 Light years. Introducion of second Jump drive set. (The Celestia appears to have two of the new "standard" Jump drives now even though it had a different model originally the conversion to make it more robust probably brought it in line with the Aurora's).
Special Projects for Part two:
1)The Celestia's Original Jump drive idea's inspire a new generation of Jump drives with larger range.
2)Faster powering of Jump cell banks. (Possibly powering each cell concurrently as opposed to in sequence) I imagine a reduction in charge times from 7.5 hours to just under 1 hour (1/8 seems reasonable) where enough power is available. Bringing back the mini ZPED's is in the Alliance's Best Interest. How many Tannan Lives could have been saved if the Aurora and Celestia had a pair of Mini ZPED's for recharge purposes??
3)The ZPED powered Jump Drive Project will render both projects unnecessary and will reduce the reliance of Jump Cells which will be used for emergencies, for combat jumps, and Jumps to Near Orbit only in future. (Say 10 Light year's worth of Jump Batteries, less then half of what is currently installed in the Aurora and Celestia - extra space for the dual linked Mini ZPED's & they're Shielding)
Currently 30 mins of charge time yields 1 light year of jump energy stored.
Mini-ZPEDS are a pretty stable technology that has been used in smaller ships, along with improved shielding (both the ZPEDS and the Jump Field Generators) that have given the Falcons and all the various shuttles (and the boxcars) the ability to series-jump vast distances like a flat rock skipping across a pond. The problem with ZPEDS powering jump drives in larger ships is that the ZPEDs themselves create a gravity well. With the mini-ZPEDs, this effect is minimal and controllable. As the ZPEDS themselves become larger, the effect becomes more severe, and thus, more difficult to manage. Even the Avendahl is using energy banks for her jump drive and using ZPEDs to recharge them, but not to directly feed the jump drive. (She has to reduce the ZPEDs to very low output in order to jump.) Of course, because of the small size of the Pentaurus cluster, the 15 ly range limitation and recharge time is not as much of an issue for the Avendahl.
I suspect it will be sometime before ZPED powered jumps on large ships is available. Instead, I would expect to see reduced recharge times, lengthened decay rates on jump fields equaling greater jump range for the same amount of energy, and greater numbers of energy banks to enable more back-to-back jumps (jump series) for larger ships. All of these could effectively increase a large ship's 1-minute jump range to well over 100 light years.
If the distance a ship can jump is determined by the decay rate of its jump fields and the number of energy banks aboard to provide power to those fields, does the size of the banks themselves have a correlation to the amount of energy they can store and therefore expend into the jump fields? You mentioned that there was presently a 15 LY single jump range limitation, but is that the maximum range of larger ships or all ships that utilize energy banks? In example, would something the size of a frigate like the Kent or Tanna have a similar maximum range as another starship the size of the Aurora or would something their size have a lower maximum jump range?
I think there are two sizes of Jump drives:
1)Small for Fighters to Gunships with a 1 Light year limit based on Power to small battery packs for pretty much instantaneous recharge. 2)Large for Frigates to Battleships with larger energy banks to charge 15 Light year Jumps.
2 reasons for not installing mini Zpeds in the Aurora and Celestia:
1)Limited availability - they were being used in Jump Munitions / Eagles / Falcons / Gunships / Shuttles etc as the main power source and the larger ships have Antimatter which is only a step down.
2) Current maximum charge speeds have been reached meaning that the mini Zpeds were surplus to requirements on those ships anyway.
As we get longer jump range we get more involved navigation no one wants to jump through a star etc. (of course just before you reached the star the gravity would cause the jump field to burst, giving you just enough time to feel your skin melt before you die of decompressed)
Four Islands is dead on with all points.
@Jason: Bigger ships = large emitter arrays = more power to achieve the same jump range. It takes a lot more power to make the Aurora jump 15 light years than it does for a shuttle to jump the same distance.
Another reason no R&D was done with ZPED use in larger ships is that the Alliance was in a mad scramble to secure territory and create that safe "bubble" of space around Sol. They had neither the time nor resources to devote to such a project.
@rykbrown Thank you, but my questions weren't about the difference between the types of jump drives, their power sources, or the availability of mini-ZPEDs. In fact, I never mentioned mini-ZPEDs or their use to recharge energy banks on ships that have energy banks.
My original question was how do you determine the amount of charge accumulated in a certain amount of time? In example, how do you calculate that one half hour of charging allows you to jump one light-year.
My subsequent question was whether ships that need to use energy banks (i.e. the Aurora, etc) had different maximum jump ranges because of the size of their energy banks. In example, would a frigate like the Tanna have to make two jumps to match the Aurora's jump of 15 LY because her energy banks are smaller (and therefore incapable of holding as much of a charge) or do all ships that use energy banks have the same 15 LY maximum range in a single jump regardless of their size.
It started out that ten light year Jumps took ten hours of charge time. It was totally arbitrary an lead to good story development.
Later improvements were made. instead of saying that a 13.254728% (or whatever) improvement was made, its easier to say and easier to pick up that the improvements halved the charge time. hence now a 15 light year jump only requires 7.5 hours charge time. Totally arbitrary and the choice of the Author.
In the Story, the fact that Takaran Science is so much beyond that of current Earth tech and the rushed Jump drive that it is easy to understand the halving of the charge time and the 50% increase in jump range.
Larger jump batteries would allow for longer range in any ship, but the thing is, you still have to stop and charge them so it really makes the ship no faster over long distances. Another issue is the power cables that bring power from the batteries to the jump emitters might not be capable of handling additional power, that could be preventing extreme long range jumps. (Think about the early books when Vlad and Sorenson were discussing the power cables limits) 7.5 hours of 2 x 100% devoted Antimatter reactors is a lot of power to push through cabling and sets a good balance to the jump drives overpowered nature. (During servicing it would be cool is some of the Tech's could talk about how they need to replace the entire jump emitter power distribution system as cables are almost fried.)
The Large ship standard of 15 Light years was probably designed into the energy banks deployed to the Frigates and Battleships. Their energy banks will be larger or smaller to allow that vessel to achieve the standard 15 light year jump.
That help?
Four Islands again hit the nail on the head. Both the original charge time and the improved charge time were arbitrary numbers based on the needs of the future story lines than on any logical formula. (After all, the jump drive is pure fiction, and not based on any real scientific principles.) Both "1 hour of charge time per light year of jump energy" and "1/2 hour of charge time per light year of jump energy" were ratios that not only served the story, but also were easy for the reader to understand and remember. The reduction in charge time was needed for several reasons, story-wise. First, it made little sense that the Takarans would have had the Aurora in for overhaul without making some improvements, especially since the Coriniairans (who are slightly less technologically advanced than the Takarans) had already made improvements.) Second, if I hadn't improved the recharge time, the length of the voyage back to Earth would have been increased by 50%, which would have given the Jung far more time to be totally entrenched and have more ships in the Sol system, making the idea that a single jump ship could recapture Sol even more difficult to believe.
The mini jump drive's ability to do a series of jumps without recharging was needed to make help from the Pentaurus cluster viable, and to make same day communications over vast distances possible as well. It also serves as a "look what's possible" hint for the future.
Another factor to think of is that as of yet, every ship was REFIT with a jump drive. Even the Aurora was not designed as a jump ship. Nor were the Cobra gunships. They were old designs retooled to accommodate jump drives and more weapons.
There is still a lot of R&D to be done on jump drive technology, and I suspect that most of it will take place in the Pentaurus cluster. For example, to get around the problem of cabling runs, (and the subsequent loss of power), the Karuzara put the energy source and energy banks in the middle of each group of emitters, rather than having them centrally located. While they were doing it for the sake of rapid installation, (it was quicker to make small caves in the surface to house fusion reactors and energy banks, and then run the distribution cables along the surface) the result was a new variation in jump drive design. ("Distributed Jump System") If such a system were designed into a large ship from the onset, both the recharge time and the amount of stored energy required for a jump would be reduced, as shorter power cable runs equals less loss of power during transfer.
So much tech still has to be introduced, and be allowed to mature over the entire saga. But it must be done in increments, and have logical reasons as to the "how's" and "why's" of each. We can't just have tech because it's "cool". My favorite example of this concept is the flying aircraft carrier in the Avengers. "Cool", yes, but from a logic standpoint it was the dumbest thing I've ever seen.
I completely agree, Heli-carriers are stupid as all hell. But god damn I want one!
My biggest grip with the Heli-carrier is this. Why does it need two runways for the launching & receiving of a full complement of vtol-planes and Helicopters?
