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Idea I have for an item in a story, large solar collectors setup around Mercury and the energy they collect is used as a quick charge for jumpships/warships. Is this something that Battletech level of technology can support or is it too far fetched for the game's levels of technology?

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Karagin-

Darkness is a friend of mine. Sometimes I have to beat it back, or it would overwhelm me. Shirley Meier

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if it is possible to quick-charge from fusion reactors, or to transfer the energy from a recharging-station the only thing in question would be the solar-collectors.

if photovoltaic collectors are not available a mirror/steam-powerplant certainly would be an option.
then the power source could always be leftover lostech.

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typos and spelling-mistakes are property of the finder. english is not my mother-tongue.

That would fit existing BattleTech lore. There are have been BattleTech recharge stations since the beginning of Battletech. And they have used a mix of fusion and solar energy. I see your idea being very workable.

The rules are...iffy...and have been in flux as long as there have been rules...so you either follow existing rules where recharge stations are basically useless, or invent your own rules where they are useful...

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Thanks for the input guys.

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Karagin-

Darkness is a friend of mine. Sometimes I have to beat it back, or it would overwhelm me. Shirley Meier

[url]http://karagin12.livejournal.com/[/url]

The Wookiee, he's not wearing any pants!

[img]http://www.heavymetalpro.com/countries/mil-army.gif[/img]

Question, why is it necessary for the facility to be at Mercury? Since jumpships almost never travel down-system, I'd imagine that aiming a microwave beam at a tiny target way down at the zenith or nadir point would be problematic, and most of the captured energy would dissipate over such a long distance anyway. Furthermore the tech to recharge jumpships quickly already exists and all the reasons I've mentioned are why such facilities are located at the jump points they are meant to service.

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Maybe I am missing something but my understanding of Nadir and Zenith points are closer in relation to the star or body aka planet so the idea of the recharge station near Mercury is following that understanding. Now unless Battletech in their FASAlogic changed things then please explain them a bit more.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadir

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Karagin-

Darkness is a friend of mine. Sometimes I have to beat it back, or it would overwhelm me. Shirley Meier

[url]http://karagin12.livejournal.com/[/url]

The Wookiee, he's not wearing any pants!

[img]http://www.heavymetalpro.com/countries/mil-army.gif[/img]

Nothing has changed. However, I think you're confusing Zenith/Nadir points with Lagrange points.

The Zenith and Nadir points (extreme north and south of the system, basically) are the points where it is safest for jumpships to pop in and out. That's because it's far enough away from the star and its bodies where gravity doesn't interfere with the workings of the jump drive.

This is really, really, really far away from the star and its planets. Fortunately Campaign Operations provides an average travel time from the zenith/nadir point to each stellar type's "life zone." For example, the Sol system's life zone is 1.3 billion kilometers away from the zenith and nadir points. Basically we're talking Mars, Earth, and Venus. It takes 8.53 days at 1g of acceleration for a dropship to travel that distance. Functionally speaking, travel times to planets outside the life zone would be only minimally shorter (Mercury) or longer (the Gas Giants). Here's a pic from the rulebooks that does a really good job of visualizing the distances involved:

http://s588.photobucket.com/user/Cannon ... p.jpg.html

Lagrange points, on the other hand, are simply points in the relative close orbit of a planet/moon configuration where an object can more or less maintain its position relative to the other two bodies. Lagrange points do not indicate the absence of gravity, in fact, quite the contrary. However, the interacting forces allow an object to maintain a stable position there. Typically the Lagrange points are within a few hundred thousand kilometers of the planet at most.

https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=ht ... mrc&uact=8

I hope that helps.

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The Expanse Battletech campaign homepage (currently defunct): http://www.heavymetalpro.com/forums/vie ... hp?t=17910

Solar Collectors, batteries and microwave energy transmission are all within battletech. So I guess it could be done

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hmmm hooom

My understanding about Lagrangian Points is that they exist along the planes of a planetary orbit, forming an equilateral triangle with one point directly opposite of the planet and the other two points on either side along its orbit. I haven't found references to Zenith and Nadir points outside of Battletech.

Mercury would be interesting to write about, considering a day is 176 days long and the day/night temperatures vary between 430 Celsius and -183 Celsius.

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[i]And Allah turned back the unbelievers in their rage; they did not obtain any advantage, and Allah sufficed the believers in fighting; and Allah is Strong, Mighty.[/i] from The Koran, 33rd Sura- The Clans

actually a lagrangian Point is a Point where the gravity of all stellar objects sums up to 0,
so if a System just has the planet and one star the (only) LP would be at the line between the planet and the star,
the distances depending on the relative weight of the star and the planet.

when there are more planets, and even moons, it is getting rather complicated.
when the planet(s) move(s) the LP(s) move(s).

with einstein the heavy objects of a solar system bend the space time, the LP would be where the bending by all objects sums up to a 0-Vector.
space time is 4-dimensional, so the LP(s)would be at different places in different times.

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typos and spelling-mistakes are property of the finder. english is not my mother-tongue.

I would assume, since most orbits would be regular and predictable, each navigation program would contain an almanac of LP schedules of common systems. Each system would have to undergo surveying and LPs flight tested to verify reliability, so that even pirate points could be predicted with some accuracy.

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[i]And Allah turned back the unbelievers in their rage; they did not obtain any advantage, and Allah sufficed the believers in fighting; and Allah is Strong, Mighty.[/i] from The Koran, 33rd Sura- The Clans

the Problem is not to predict where the PPs are, but that they are rather small, wile the classical Points allow for a lot of error.
jumping 30 LJ you only have to be of a tiny fraction of 1° and you land outside the LP/PP same goes with normal jumppoints, only with the allowed error being somewhat bigger.

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typos and spelling-mistakes are property of the finder. english is not my mother-tongue.