Johannes replied to me:
> I always assumed that bioconvertors are meant to be realistic
technology that we
> don't have yet,
That would be the default assumption, especially for herbivore convertors. A
fuel cell using methanol from plant matter or a combusion engine with
biogas.
I'm looking for alternate "color texts" for bioconvertors in a biomechanical
structure to explain the whole thing as a largely biological design.
> and only make sense if space opera technology does not exist. For
anything else,
> they seem too underpowered.
Bioconverters could be environmentally friendly and refuel themselves if
they
can get grass or plankton, for small unmanned ground or underwater
vehicles.
The stats for NPUs or RTGs might look better, but what if one goes
missing in
an ecologically important swamp?
And growing biomech vehicles might be easier than building mechanical ones.
You ship in eggs or seedlings and let them hatch.
> That said, maybe you can get anywhere with a more reptile like
metabolism.
> You have a bioconverter and power cells, and use the bioconverter
mainly to
> fill the powercells and the powercells to actually power the vehicle.
Add a
> big food storage tank and you get something like a snake, that is
sluggish
> when it has just eaten something and now has to lie in the sun for a long
> time, until it get fast and moveable again.
That would mean the power cell is a mechanical component of a biomechanical
vehicle.
Brandon replied to me:
> Perhaps some kind of air jet, where the ship sucks in air at the
front and
> forces it out at high speed from the rear?
There is no Vehicles propulsion system like that, right? In the water, the
hydrojet text is sufficiently vague to allow different sorts of pumps, but
in the air that doesn't sound like any prop or jet engine.
The best thing I can think of are ornithopter wings with additional lift
from gasbags, but that will be grossly inefficient.
Regards,
Onno
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