Selected excerpts from NAVSPA 08 MAIN ENGINE TM, CONSTITUTION-class

[Jroinc1]

Sup. It's me again, Angelo Pearsall. So, by now, some of you new MT's and CE's have read the short introductory paragraph in Engineering about setting up the Supermatter, but have you ever read the tech manual? The actual, no-shit, NAVSPA 08-approved, MAIN ENGINE TECHNICAL MANUAL, CONSTITUTION-class?

Of course not, it's over 600 pages. That's far too long for any of you fellows to bother with. So, here's your cheat sheet, straight from the manual.


Basic Overview
1.1.1
Basic Overview

The Constitution-class starships are considered a vast improvement over all older ships, due to their incorporation of an energy-well storage system, using a pulsed lasing system to establish a continuous rate of energy withdrawal, most of which is in the form of radiation, while a relatively small amount is in the form of heat. Primary systems turn the radiation into usable energy, while secondary systems remove the heat from the chamber through forced cooling. The usable energy is stored in SMES's for controlled release into the ship's realspace propulsion plant, combat systems, and auxiliary electrical system.
Yeah, that was written like 60 years ago, back when SM drives weren't standard, and lumbering singularity drive ships were all that existed. Still relevant, but we aren't cutting-edge anymore.

HEAT SOURCE
1.2.1
Primary Supermatter Core

A Constitution-class starship's primary heat source is a proprietary polymer that stores massive amounts of energy in it's crystalline structure. The trade name is Supermatter, which will be used interchangeably with Primary Heat Source, and SM, throughout the rest of this document. The primary supplier of Supermatter to the USCM is Hyperdyne systems, see their applicable documentation on specific core issues. Outdated, W-Y cracked the problem of charging SM almost 20 years ago, and stole the contract. We're all W-Y now.

1.2.4
General Precautions WARNING DO NOT TOUCH SUPERMATTER IN ANY WAY THE ONLY APPROVED WAY TO TRANSPORT SUPERMATTER IS BY PULLING IT BY THE BUILT-IN HANDLES SM has 2 main characteristics associated with it. Charge, and integrity. Charge shows the rate the SM is discharging power at, and Integrity shows the amount of damage to the crystal. Charge increases when the SM is struck by an emitter beam, is left in the presence of O2, or is hit by any object. You can also hold a lit welder to it. If you have steady hands. Integrity decreases when the SM is heated above 1000C, or if it is struck by a fast-moving object, such as bullets. Neither of these conditions should happen, and if integrity is decreased from anything other than full, the ship is in a casualty situation requiring operator action to prevent a delamination event. Hyperdyne SM harnesses both have a self-healing feature that allows the SM to "heal" if the temperature drops below 1000C, and a built-in integrity monitor that links in and broadcasts on the engineering frequency. Yeah... since we switched to W-Y SM, the frequency got changed, and it does NOT interface with our systems, until we get the 4th generation re-fit. Gotta love grand-fathered in equipment. Again, these are installed as operator aids ONLY, operator action is still required to stabilize the SM.

1.2.3
Supermatter Theory
We'll skip this one, not important.

PRIMARY SYSTEMS
1.3.1
Radiation Collectors

The Radiation Collectors are a housing for phoron tanks, which allow phoron to be radiation-catalyzed, producing electrical power, and providing a mounting onto the grid. These use... Not much to these, just fill them up with a tank apiece. Next.

SECONDARY SYSTEMS
1.4.1
Cooling Loop

The Cooling Loop has 5 major components that all coolant will pass through. The vent pump out, filtering system, primary turbopump, primary coolant pump, and coolant injector. The "hot loop" is defined as stretching from the vent pump out to the primary turbopump, and the "cold loop" is defined as being from the primary turbopump to the coolant injector. The coolers are located between the primary turbopump and primary coolant pump, and the coolant draining attachment point is located between the filtering system and primary turbopump. Seems complex, right? Just trace the system yourself, it's not that bad. The Cooling Loop uses forced cooling through... Not important. All you need to know is that it won't work without power, and the steady-state temperature, with 10 shots in, should never exceed 300C. If it does, keep reading.

1.6.1
Phased UV Lasing System

The "Emitter", as it is informally known, is a... Not relevant. After the... incident with USS Almayer last year, we had to remove the emitter AND the spare due to damage. We're using Point-Defense Beam 17 as the emitter, and 36 as the backup. They're used because they were the hangar-queens of our array, kept refusing to track and had poor adaptive focusing.
AANYWAY, beam color in the visible range (green), shitty range, still does the job. 10 shots is the standard, would be 8 if we still had the UV array.

1.7.1
Forced-Cooling System

The "cold loop" is cooled by a set of 3 installed W-Y gas coolers (double loop, cross-flow, integrated radiator),with a 4th unit installed as active spare. These units provide active cooling capacity to the main loop, vice the passive cooling given to the waste loop. The active cooling is required to... Yeah. These things are the bane of my existence. W-Y technically has the warranty on these. And despite the proven fact that these work better with upgraded components than standard ones, shipyard contractors check them every visit and replace them. Despite not giving a shit about the kludged up emitter...

ENGINE SETUP and CASUALTY PROCEDURES

2.1.1
Post-jump SM initiation procedures

Oh god. I'mma leave this one as an example of how NAVSPA 08 wants us to do things.
Engineering Officer of the Watch- EOOW- Officer in charge of the setup, usually CE or a BO.
Supermatter Operator- SO- Enlisted in charge of the Supermatter.
Electrical Operator- EO- Enlisted in charge of the ship's electrical systems.
Mechanical Operator- MO- Enlisted in charge of the SM secondary systems.

WIP, updating this slowly with casualty procedures and additional engine information.

[NoahKirchner]

Oh shit, I like the IC guide. Like a lot :D

[Jroinc1]

Oh shit, I like the IC guide. Like a lot

PROCEDURAL COMPLIANCE, SHIPMATE.

[Jalleo]

can you change the colour of the blue writing please its a bit hard to read on the dark background apart from that its a good guide.

[Joe4444]

isn't it CONESTOGA and not constitiution?
https://gyazo.com/0db692b7fc7e3dd58a9fdf4e07669b00

[Jroinc1]

isn't it CONESTOGA and not constitiution?
https://gyazo.com/0db692b7fc7e3dd58a9fdf4e07669b00

I picked Constitution, from our wiki, as it's the first ship of it's class. Movie-wise, it is Conestoga. Server-wise, it's Constitution.

Will update more when work gets less shitty.

[Nick123q23]

IC guides are great. I like the idea of the emitter just being a recycled point defense laser, really shows how the USCM makes do with thins when shit breaks