For a story I want to do, I'm thinking about having a character who has been stuck on an exo planet beyond the gates for more than 3 years. The intent being that the person will run into power troubles for his suit as 3 years is longer than what the nuclear battery is rated for. His story will be about survival, one that makes a big deal about keeping his suit powered enough to keep life support operational.
While the rulebooks don't seem to cover getting power from nuclear batteries that have reached their best before date, I'm fairly sure that expired nuclear batteries are still usable. Since nuclear batteries rely on radioactive isotopes, and radioactive isotopes have that half life business, am I correct in assuming that nuclear batteries halve in power over time (over and over); not simply stop providing power once it reaches the end of its life span?
The thing is, I have some ideas as to how to extend the life of a hard suit in the event the user is forced to deal shortage of power issue. I was wondering any readers might be able to provide comments and criticism. If you have your own ideas, feel free to share.
My ideas:
-Reducing power to systems. A classic solution in television and movies. You redirect power or cut power completely from non vital systems and services to ensure vital services are powered. However, this would only work for so long. The fact is the nuclear battery will continue to grow weaker.
-Hibernation bioware augmentation. This augmentation allows the user to greatly reduce the oxygen and other biological demands the body requires. This will reduce the power required by life support in the form of reduced oxygen, food, and water demands. Likewise, the servo-assist motor systems would get a break since a hibernating biomorph isn't using up power to move around. Systems providing heat cooling would still need to be running otherwise the biomorph might freeze or fry. However, this method works best when the hard suit has some sort of battery system to store power when the demands are low. If the suit does not have batteries and completely relies on the continuous supply of power from a nuclear battery, chances are the only thing you are buying is additional life support time (build up a supply of oxygen, food, and water during hibernation) and additional biologically stored energy (which might be used when the servo-assist motors are turned off requiring the biomorph to carry the full weight of the hard suit).
-Removing shell material. A hard suit is heavy. It is equipped with servo-assist motors to make it easy to move such a big load around. Such motors require power to operate. Therefore, if the environmental temperature is good, no need for space thrusters, and pressure and radiation are good as well, then maybe it would be worth trying to strip the suit down to something resembling a vac suit with a high quality maker instead of a heavy bulky hard suit.
-Substitute power sources. There are many ways to get power, such as solar energy panels. However, whatever method you use to get power, it will likely work best if the hard suit has batteries so that it could store energy.
-Replace the nuclear battery. This would likely require some technology, some expertise, and a source of radioactive isotopes, but it would eliminate the power problems for a while.
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Making hard suits last longer
Wed, 2013-02-20 17:24
#1
DivineWrath
Making hard suits last longer
Wed, 2013-02-20 18:17
#2
mkn
A few ideas
Cool premise. I was just wondering how long 'indefinitely' was in some of the vac suit descriptions...
What's the environment this character is stranded in?
Energy is certainly the first concern, but your character will also need some additional material entering the "ecosystem" of his vacsuit. The maker and oxygen recycling system can't possibly be 100% efficient, and were probably never designed to run for three years non-stop. It seems your guy would have to find local resources to fill in what's lost to his metabolism. Water certainly, but perhaps also some kind of organic material that can be broken down into food. I guess you'd have to assume the reservoir and maker could be replenished without removing the suit.
As for energy--
Does the character have any other equipment? If he's got a weapon, communication device, or anything else with a battery that could be scavenged, that would be the first stop. An energy weapon might have a battery comparable to the one in the suit--doubling your energy budget at the expense of having no means of defense (besides a pointy stick).
It could be really interesting if the character is forced to tear up his equipment to make a primitive dynamo to recharge his batteries. Depending on the environment he's in, he might take advantage of hydroelectric power, solar energy, a primitive steam boiler fueled by local hydrocarbons, a spring of boiling methane, or some other natural feature. This seems like a more exciting problem than just having him swap batteries. If nuclear batteries don't "recharge", he might be stuck powering his suit with a much smaller battery--maybe he winds up with two--one is charging while the other powers his suit. Making things tricky if he has trouble getting to his power station on time.
And to conserve energy--maybe he has to regulate temperature with a shade during daylight hours, to avoid wasting energy on air conditioning. Minimizing use of the limb servos is a good one too.
It's hard to believe he'd be able to sift enough radioactive material from the local dirt to be useful (even if he's sitting on a pile of uranium ore). I assume EP level tech allows one to use nano machinery to refine ore instead of thousands of centrifuges, but having the nanos build him a new nuke battery from scratch seems too easy.
As a point of interest--the plutonium pellet that powers Curiosity will (if I remember correctly) last for 50 years, supplying heat to a thermocouple that recharges the onboard batteries. Though Curiosity can really only creep around and operate a few instruments instruments--quite a different set of demands from keeping a biomorph alive.
And I'm not sure what is meant by a "nuclear battery", or whether it would have a half life--somehow I doubt that it is a pellet of plutonium. I'd be more inclined to believe that it's a miniaturized reactor--in which case, yeah, it would probably slowly lose potency over time rather than cutting out all at once like the AA's in a remote. Don't ask me where the waste heat from a miniature fission reactor goes though. I'm almost inclined to retcon the "nuclear battery" into some kind of ultra high density graphene battery or something.
Just my two cents... good luck on the story!
—
“Man is an artifact designed for space travel. He is not designed to remain in his present biologic state any more than a tadpole is designed to remain a tadpole.”
-William S. Burroughs
Thu, 2013-02-21 04:18
#3
DivineWrath
I haven't set in stone as to
I haven't set in stone as to what kind of environment (the planet he is stranded on) is. I'm inclined to pick a planet with life on it so he has to multi-task power demands and keeping away from critters that might try to eat him (and other critters that might unintentionally kill him). On the plus side, it would mean that he would have a variety of materials to work with.
As for recycling, I'm in favor for a near perfect recycling system. I'm thinking that the hard suit is a well sealed and well protected, so leaking shouldn't be a problem. As such a high quality maker should be able to recycle nearly everything. I was left confused for a while why the hard suit maker could last indefinitely, but I eventually come to the conclusion that the maker is of a quality is ranked amongst the best that transhumanity has produced, better than those in standard vacsuits and [Moderate] priced makers. Even the life support pack found in the gatecrashing book is priced [Moderate], lower than the hard suit [High] price, so I'm assuming that a standard vacsuit equipped with a life support pack is still an inferior recycling system to that of a hard suit.
I actually more worried about the wear and tear that the hard suit might suffer after many years. Between the wear on the joints and possible cut marks from hungry critters, the self repair systems might run low on spare materials after a few years. The repair systems are essentially a repair nanoswarm maintained by a nanohive built into the suit, so it might be possible reprogram them to extract material from the environment.
I'm assuming the nuclear battery is some sort of power generator. Initially it would produce more power than the suit needs for 3 years, after which time it would be producing less than what it needs (however that is defined). I'm not sure what the balance is between relying on power from directly from the generator and relying on batteries.
-If the generator is intended to supply the full power demands of a hard suit for 3 full years, then the hard suit might not have batteries. If so, then the generator would be able to power everything at full power for the generator's best before time. But after that, he would be needing to balance power between movement and air.
-If the amount is supposed to be significantly more than life support requirements, but not enough to be full power for the full 3 years, then batteries would be needed to make the suit last for the full 3 years. Balancing air with movement would be an experience that most people are paying good money to avoid. I think it would be safe to assume that 48 hours of full power would be the norm.
-If he were lucky (he will not), he would have a generator supplying full power for 3 years, but a 48 hour battery giving significant time to work with.
Thu, 2013-02-21 10:14
#4
Trinary
Nuclear batteries generally
Nuclear batteries generally work by radioactive decay as a heat source: As the isotope decays, it generates heat that's used to generate electricity. In a full nuclear powerplant there's the ability to 'throttle' the decay rate by introducing control rods that absorb free neutrons and prevent more fissile reactions. However, in a thermoelectric battery like the one onboard NASA's Curiosity Rover, there's no way to turn down how much heat is being generated. The material decays at a fixed rate (quantum physics aside) until it no longer provides a useable amount of heat. You can't recharge it, you can't turn it off. You can store excess power generated in conventional rechargeable batteries; but once the decay rate drops below useable threshold; it's gone.
Alternate power sources would pretty much be mandatory.
Thu, 2013-02-21 15:08
#5
NewtonPulsifer
Radioactive isotopes that
Radioactive isotopes that decay by beta decay directly emit a high energy electron - they can be more easily converted to electricity than heat.
Also, beta decay can be induced - by lasers (already done in the lab with tabletop sized lasers), electromagnetic field (needed is much too high for our tech, EP tech?), and controlling neutrino flux (this isn't for sure, but there's data supporting this hypothesis - EP tech can definitely create and contain neutrinos/anti-neutrinos). So I suppose its feasible to have a radioactive battery "suddenly" get to the point of not putting out any useful power after 3 years, regardless of half-life (due to the beta decay being induced/accelerated by the nuclear battery pack). That being said, if beta decay is being induced, then you could turn it off - ultimately you'd have actual control over the battery, giving it a variable output up to the 1 kilowatt/kg max. Turn it down, and it will last much much longer. If it was say Strontium-90, it would have a half life of 28.8 years without beta decay inducement. FWIW, you get about 94.7 gigajoules total from a 1kg EP nuclear battery pack, which is a *LOT*. That's 22.6 million kilocalories, enough for about 31 years of food for a human male consuming 2000kcal per day. That's of course at 100% efficiency for a maker. Even if you assume 33%, that's still over 10 years.
Also, if EP tech can harness gamma rays, that could possibly be used as a viable decay energy source (for gamma emitters like Cobalt 60).
Using alpha particles is also possible, but you'd probably generate as much heat as you would power - so you'd need bulky infrared photovoltaics and fancy thermoelectrics to absorb some of that. Alpha particle based decay probably is too heavy to be feasible except for fixed placement usage.
—
"I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."- Isoroku Yamamoto
Thu, 2013-02-21 15:53
#6
Decimator
Strontium-90 isn't a good
Strontium-90 isn't a good choice. Extracting energy from Sr-90 beta decay causes bremsstrahlung, which isn't going to be healthy for a biomorph wearing it on its back.
Thu, 2013-02-21 16:55
#7
NewtonPulsifer
If you're inducing beta decay
If you're inducing beta decay, the 0.546 Mev electron from the Strontium and the 2.28 MeV electron from the Yttrium-90 can be slowed down by an electric field (generating electricity) by first moving those atoms to be induced to a reaction chamber.
A 1 MeV electron is 2.82 x 10^8 m/s. To decelerate it in .01 meters, we'd need on the order of ^18 deceleration from a field. That's about 1000x a television. Very do-able with EP tech.
Increase that by 10 .1 meters (4 inches), its 100 times a TV. Bend the electron with a magnetic field...well, if you circularize it, you extend that out to infinity, giving you an much weaker field needed (but now need a ring magnet. That's okay, we probably needed a room-temperature superconductor battery/capacitor anyways).
Also, you can reflect hard x-rays and gamma-rays with diamonds, in case of leakage at seams and the normal non-induced beta decay from the Strontium-90, to eventually be absorbed as heat in the nuclear battery (perhaps some of that loss re-captured with photovoltaics in the infrared range in the battery casing).
In addition, I expect somebody in a splicer+ with medichines could totally ignore on the order of 5000 times the radiation dosage of us "flats" in the early 21st century - its very probable a gatecrasher has both.
This may sound fancy but it is *way* easier than fusion.
—
"I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."- Isoroku Yamamoto
Thu, 2013-02-21 17:01
#8
mkn
Regarding the maker--from my
Regarding the maker--from my limited understanding, that level of efficiency in a closed system is physically impossible. Even if the maker can reconstitute feces and urine into useful nutrients more than once or twice, the biomorph burns it off as cellular energy--radiating some small percentage of that mass as body heat. So, even without leaks, you can't run the same few kilos of matter through your body over and over again and receive the same benefit.
Since it's a subjective interpretation of fictional technology, I won't argue it any further, but a more complicated predicament tends to make for better drama. Keep in mind that extracting existing proteins and nutrients from the environment (or the building blocks thereof) is probably more energy efficient than building the same compounds from scratch.
I'm also very fond of Jack London stories--for me, the challenge of getting food and water can be just as exciting as fending off bizarre alien beasties. So forgive me if that bias isn't compatible with the story you're trying to tell. If it suits you better to handwave those mundane details, then go ahead.
Setting aside canon descriptions of the equipment for a second--
His suit probably has both batteries (which store power) and some kind of power source (which actually produces power). There's no reason to have a high intensity power source when many power intensive systems (like the maker, recycler, or rockets if you have them) only need to be used intermittently. So it could very well last for three years, but maybe every time he wakes up, the batteries are just a liiiiittle less charged than they were the day before.
Deciding what the capacity of each is pretty much up to you--that is, however cruel you want to be to your character. I think the game developers used the word "indefinitely" so that players don't waste game time doing bookkeeping.
If the power source does wear out, significant drama could be found in finding a new power source to recharge those batteries as the suit's internal generator loses potency. Your premise makes me think of a strange Robinson Crusoe situation--relying on primitive means to sustain the hi-tech gear that's necessary for survival. I must say, I'm partial to the idea of him sacrificing his weapon's power supply for suit backup, so he has to fend off beasties with rocks/pointy sticks/hunks of wreckage.
I think designing the environment this character must survive in is just as important as the limitations of his vac suit. If he's on a planet with carbon based life, finding the necessities of life should be easy. There's a lot of golden age scifi that deals with the same problem, only on the scale of hours or days instead of years.
Don't forget the chafing and bedsores--I'm trying to imagine what would compare to being sealed in a vacsuit for three years. I can only think of stories about people who had to be in traction for months at a time. I hope he's got an e-reader loaded up in his mesh implants.
—
“Man is an artifact designed for space travel. He is not designed to remain in his present biologic state any more than a tadpole is designed to remain a tadpole.”
-William S. Burroughs
Thu, 2013-02-21 20:17
#9
NewtonPulsifer
Bacterial electrosynthesis is
Bacterial electrosynthesis is over 80% efficient so a 33% efficient maker is *extremely* conservative.
EDIT:
To be clear - the maker uses electrical energy to add chemical energy to the shit sandwich, so its not a closed system.
—
"I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."- Isoroku Yamamoto
Fri, 2013-02-22 07:08
#10
DivineWrath
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that makers can add energy to recycled matter. If nanofabs couldn't add energy to the mix, I would have difficulty in believing that nanofabs could work at all.
Plus the survival of many habs depend on the recycling systems of nanofabs. It would also be weird that hardsuits were built for long term use, yet be unable to handle long term recycling tasks needed to keep people alive long term.
Fri, 2013-02-22 10:30
#11
Erenthia
The suit could be fitted with
The suit could be fitted with nanomachines for self-repair. This does not necessarily mean it will never wear out. It does mean the suit can suffer a LOT more damage over time then you'd think AND it's self-repair system slowly wearing out is another source of tension. While scrounging for food your character could also scrounge for raw materials necessary for the nano-machines to repair his suit.
Here's some interesting questions: Is his muse still active? I would suggest giving him a long period without it, but don't strip it away completely. It'll help keep him sane [i]and[/i] be an effective narrative tool. What gear does he have when he goes through the gate? If he has a Protean hive and a bunch of blueprints his productive capacity is going to be insane. While a conventional survival story wouldn't benefit from having a character with massive ability to build up a productive infrastructure, since he's going to be alone he's going to have plenty of time on his hands and you can throttle how effectively he's able to leverage it by having him unable to find suitable raw materials, by limiting what blueprints he has, and by having him lose the Protean hive in the beginning of the story (most of his supplies were near the gate when a cave-in occurred). A year of digging through solid rock later, he finally gets back to his original supplies (most of which will still work - but the bluebox is destroyed) including the Protean hive. Once he get's it you can give him a short reprieve before upping the ante. Perhaps there's intelligent life on this exoplanet, and it's not friendly.
—
The end really is coming. What comes after that is anyone's guess.
Fri, 2013-02-22 18:35
#12
DivineWrath
I gave the issue of repairs
I gave the issue of repairs more thought.
A hard suit comes with a fixer nanoswarm by default (probably allowing it to repair other objects). A fixer nanoswarm might be able to extract materials from the environment on its own and provide those materials to its nanohive for processing, but I'm not sure. As such, if proper materials were available in the environment then the suit might be able to remain fully repaired.
However, his suit is nearly a decade old, so I'm going to rule that it has the equivalent of a built in repair spray instead. It might not be able to extract materials from the environment (without serious reprogramming). So yes, I think that running out of repair materials is a very real risk from being out in the field for so long. In fact, his hardsuit is going to show the signs that it has taken a beating and doesn't have the materials to repair all the damage.
----
I'm not sure what to do about the muse. Its likely at some point he may turn it off so he is not using so much power on his mesh inserts.
He is going to keep his mesh inserts on at the minimal power needed though. The advantage of keeping the mesh inserts on is he can monitor remaining power (he doesn't want to run out of power in the middle of hostile territory), and send the suit's sensor data (with enhanced visual spectrum and visual magnification) directly into his visual cortex.
Fri, 2013-02-22 19:35
#13
DivineWrath
I'll go write out some of his
I'll go write out some of his story. I want him down in writing (even if I end up changing him later). I'll stat him up later. Feel free to offer comments and criticism.
----
His name is Ralph Erikson. He is one of the early birds to go through the martian gate. His first year was eventful, but he managed to survive. Shortly afterwards, he disappeared when walking through the gate to an (not specified) exoplanet. His team did not see him show up, and eventually he was officially reported missing. The colony that has been set up has yet to see him show up. What happen was, when he walked through that gate, he wound up on a different exoplanet altogether. Since he has been reported missing, his backup was eventually restored (possible plot hook for later).
He does not have the tools to use a gate. Most of his gear he was carrying was supposed to be supplies for exoplanet settlement he going to (he was supposed to carry what he could as he went through). Instead, he arrived somewhere else under equipped. I haven't decided what all the supplies were. He does have basic survival gear like weapons and solar panels. I also think he should be carrying a mobile lab as part of the gear for the settlement.
His hardsuit wasn't put together well. The DRM is even worse. It did not allow the settings to be changed easily, and it would threaten to erase the OS if he tried to hack it (including the software to control life support). The hardsuit did technically work, but it lacked the flexibility that one might want and need light years away from home (like additional hardware ports and software features). It was bad enough that he jokingly refered to his POS hardsuit as the coffin he will die in (over the years of his isolation, he is now certain the universe has a sense of humor). He is temped to leave his hardsuit and die just to make it not true.
He had enough of the troubles his POS hardsuit caused, so he was asking around and pulling favors to try to get himself a better suit. He would have probably replaced it with something better shortly after he got back. He often did get some time off, so he was considering taking up a hobby of designing blueprints and programing. He wanted to truly own his hardsuit and never have to worry about DRM and bad design problems ever again.
His morph is a splicer. It is equipped with medichines and hibernation augmentations. He wanted to be able to survive in the field for a long time. He never expected that he would end up outlasting his hardsuit's nuclear battery. His morph is currently underfeed and undernourished as he has been making cuts to food production to make his power last.
Surviving on the planet wasn't easy. Thankfully he did have power cables to plug his guns into his suit's port so he was able to use the batteries to extend his suit's power reserves. It originally had 48 hours of operating time on battery power alone, but the batteries for his guns increased it by 4 (hand waving it at the moment as I don't know a good number to use). He has only 1 such port on his suit so he has to remember to swap batteries and guns. In addition, his hardsuit has scratch marks on it - with an especially distinctive mark made by a 3 clawed creature scratched along the front of his hardsuit. It runs from his top right to bottom left. His hardsuit also suffers from a bad repair job from a gouge made by some horned creature that managed to pierce its armor. It did seal, but you can tell where the armor is thin at. It looks like his suit tried to repair the hole by taking material from the adjacent area. His morph didn't heal right from that injury so he now walks with a limp. The damage from the gouge wrecked some of the hardsuit's batteries so it now has something like 29 hours of battery power without his gun's batteries.
He is down to his last solar panel. If that goes, he is worried that there would not be enough power to even keep him alive. He is getting desperate enough that he is seriously considering trying to hack his hardsuit (even though the DRM might kill the life support software if he gets caught) in hopes of gaining control over the repair systems. He wants to be able to reprogram them so he can use them to reverse engineer his broken solar panels and build new solar panels. He wants to do this before his last solar panel gets broken, before he might be unable to provide enough power to life support. He was able to find a variety of materials and has made a few stock piles, so he expects to be ready if he can modify the programing of the repair spray.