[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by welsh

I guess this goes back to what you keep and what you toss. I see the logic of many of your posts, but in the end there are two problems.

Don’t worry about it. Even if I do disagree, I do find the perspectives interesting and feel like a came away from the discussion with something else in the tool kit.

Originally Posted by welsh

(1) Fusion is just too great an advance on technology in the way its depicted. I could see a larger power station that creates the electricity necessary to power the vehicles and that these power stations could become key strategic assets of the project that need to be placed on-line within a short window, but having every team moving about the land with a portable fusion power station seems too easy an escape. Ok, you don't want them running around collecting fuel- fine. Utilize an alternative source of energy. Large wind turbines? Massive solar panel fields? There has to be some form of technology that isn't quite so advanced. I can see long-term batteries that last for a year or so, but fusion power.

One could argue for those. Hard to hide them something that big and have it sit offline. Large power plants need large workforces to run them, those need to be housed and feed. I suppose the regional bases could have power plants that can operate at many times in excess what the base would require and have such a workforce on hand.

The problem with wind turbines or large fields of solar panels is getting those built and running in the beginning stages of the 3-5 year plan with the whole of North America a radioactive and biowarfare plague hell. Those take a heck of a long time to assemble.

Batteries that last a year at 100% aren’t any more feasible now than a fusion plant. The best lithium ions are only good for a few hundred miles, hence the move to hybrids.

If you feel like fusion is going to get away from you, restrict the output. The V-150 can’t be the village powerplant and move around. The sockets on the outside are limited to one 220 and two 110. Even the output of the power plant can be restricted down to that of a 5000 watt home generator. The high torque electric motors needed to move a V-150 don’t require that much voltage only a lot of amperage.

Originally Posted by welsh

(2) I know its canon- but the time and dimensional jumping Morrow has also been a thorn in the game. I'd rather have an organization that ran the math probabilities and predicted some massive global catastrophe was inevitable and had decided it was worth investing some kind of plan for when catastrophe happens.

That is more or less what the Project has done. It seems the Nuclear War is inevitable (Terminator II Judgement Day?) but, Bruce can’t predict how or when. He can show proof, but tragically cannot prevent it. On the flipside, the rest seems to be people relying on predictions and models that they can grasp.

Originally Posted by welsh

Don't get me wrong, I would prefer if the game didn't becomes a search for fuel, but there are really no better energy alternatives? Bio or alcohol fuels seem a better choice and flexibility in energy development. Ok, large nuclear reactors, wind farms or solar power fields need to be built and defended, but why not make that part of the game as well.

Biofuels has been a disaster here in the U.S. without a nuclear war! The acreage to feed people and farm livestock diverted to make fuel for cars didn’t lower the costs and skyrocketed the costs of food. The yields of oils from acreage is pretty low. Low enough that a truck fleet would need to sit idle for half a year to build enough fuel stocks to operate usefully. The choice becomes feed the people or fuel the trucks.
http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_yield.html

Originally Posted by welsh

There seems to be a trade off- how flexible and free do you want your teams to be vs how believable is the fusion energy and the problems fusion brings.

I prefer a mobile team with a fusion powered vehicle vs one that stops to barter for fuel or spends days harvesting high carbohydrate yield crops to make alcohol.

Having an armored car has been a bigger pain in the neck for the PD than it being fusion powered. You can’t get the players out of the can.