| From: | shadowrn@*********.com (Tzeentch) |
|---|---|
| Subject: | [TECH] Shadowrun Superconductors and Technology |
| Date: | Thu Jul 26 02:35:01 2001 |
the Shadowrun technical architecture then do us all a favor and hit delete.
I really don't want to read comments like "It's just a game" or "Its
magic!"
or other such amazingly perceptive observations.]**
Superconductors are not really used much in Shadowrun. Why not? Well blame
it on the Crash of 2029 I guess. Virtually none of the technologies in SR
seem to have any real impact on the world or research into other areas. I
call this the "Jesus Incident." In short, Jesus (or insert some other deity,
Thoth perhaps) floats down out the sky and waves a magic wand and says "Thou
shall not use super keen technology for anything but weapons or nifty
death-dealing body enhancements." I think this pronouncement is actually
etched in the HQ of every national and corporate entity on the planet. Along
with the "Thou shall not question extraterritoriality or NAN cloning vats."
the setting certainly becomes more intenally consistent (not more credible,
just consistent).
For example, we have "dry" Drexler-wet-dream nanotech but apparantely no
real advances in even basic materials science! With SR nano being so
incredibly cheap and capable (you can actually reprogram them quite easily)
there does not seem to be any real work on nanocomposites and so on. I'm
well aware of the research that went into writing the nanotech section of
Man and Machine thanks - I still don't think it really is any "improvement"
on the wet nanotech of Shadowtech.
Very strange especially considering that monomolecular assembly (possible
before dry nano became available by at LEAST a decade) is not used on
anything aside from whips and swords. Apparantely noones even though of the
idea that this stuff could be used for some really sickly useful composite
materials. Maybe the armor on those drones is made out of some sort of
nanocomposite...
Superconductors. Yeah nifty. I guess we have to assume that the power cells
used for the various laser weapons (and the railguns) are some sort of
"superloop" system. If you want to stretch Shadowrun credulty (not
necessarily having anything to do with real life credulty) its a REALLY
effective superconductive composite with tensile strength out the freakin'
wazoo. Maybe manufactured using that often ignored nanotech. The problem
with superconductors being that all that energyhas a pesky magnetic field.
The more power it stores the more powerful it is. Eventually you reach the
point where the loop/battery/whatever flys apart - and if these things are
really storing the kind of energy densities implied by the Redline Laser
Pistol there is a case for using superconductor cells as actual explosive
devices. So unless the superconductive cells are quite large to minimize
these pesky little "design features" why havent they resulted in advances
across the board? forget this wierd ceramic or "super dense plastic" we have
now I want the stuff these superconductors are made out of!
These power densities are nothing to sneeze at. Even counting the casing a
Redline cell stores about 8MJ/kilogram. Now, considering the overal level of
technical retardation experienced in the Shadowrun timeline this should be
quite shocking - even compared to (say) the electric batteries in Rigger.
Thats around (correct me if I'm wrong please). Assuming the capacitor has
really crummy energy density (50% or so - which is a damn site better then
those available now) thats does still put them far below lead acid or
lithium ion batteries as well as glassy carbon and so on. Be thankful for
small favors ;)
I'm not blameless obviously. The railgun capacitors have power densities of
around 20MW/kg! Which works out to around 16GJ/m^3. Impressive when you
consider that modern railgun tech is looking at fluoride film dielectric
capacitors (2.5MJ/m^3) or compensated pulsed alternators (135MJ/m^3).
Looking back I think I was smoking crack and reading Man and Machine too
late at night... If I did it over again I would probably reduce the
capacitors to 18kW/kg. Yes quite a damn drop! The problem obviously is then
the heavy railguns get REALLY REALLY heavy. Another option is to assume that
they use magnetocumulative generators of some type, with power densities of
around 2MW/kg but with added weight and complexity because you then need a
chamber for detonating the devices.
Some comparisons of real world modern ultracapactors compared to Redline
batteries and railguns:
* Note I will run on the assumption that the capacitor has around 1/2 energy
density compared to conventionally available batteries. Obviously superior
power density and discharge time.*
Shadowrun Supercapacitors: 8000kW/kg
Shadowrun Railgun Capacitors: 20000kW/kg
High Energy Density Capacitor (state of the art): 10kW/kg
Ness Ultracapacitor: 5.1 kW/kg)
Aerocapacitor: 7 kW/kg
Quite an impressive technological leap eh? And this actually is quite
conservative. The Redline cells (assuming somewhat more realistic beam
energy and efficiency issues) would probably be about 2-3 as power hungry
(and thus the cells would be 15-20MW/kg).
Kenneth Peters
"...enlisted men are stupid, but extremely cunning and sly, and bear
considerable watching."
- Army Officer's Guide ca 1874
