Tritium needs replacing

[Chrystoph]

Someone didn't do their research...

While tritium has several different experimentally determined values of its half-life, the National Institute of Standards and Technology lists 4,500 ± 8 days (12.32 ± 0.02 years). *

That means that, in the wild, Tritium exists for less than 25 years.

Any current solar body is thousands, if not millions of years old. That means that mining for Tritium should be almost impossible to find naturally.

That said, if you read the article, producing Tritium in a breeder plant would be more reasonable, since all that requires is Helium3 and a neutron injector. Since Helium3 can be produced through a neutron bombardment of Lithium **, which can be obtained locally in sea water, and, presumably, in other similar environments, it makes more sense for harvesting a Water World's volume, using a refinery and pushing the gathered Lithium into a reactor to generate the Tritium.

This all presumes that only a Tritium fusion reactor will push a Fleet Carrier's FSD. Honestly, other types would seem to make more sense.


* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tritium
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium-3

 

[ADAMtheWELSHMANz]

Late to the party?

That was brought up months ago along with "why can't FC's scoop from stars/ gas giants?"

Reason - it's a game mechanic, try not to over-think it.

 

[Quantis Trap]

Yep, that was a dead horse back in the beta.

 

[Awesumnus Maximus]

It's almost like it's a game...

 

[Rat Catcher]

... and don't tell Hello Games about this inconsistency as Tritium is mined by shooting at asteroids in NMS!

 

[Hacker#451563]

Don't mention to Naughty Dog that wamin can't get muscles like one of their latest characters without the use of steroids which might be hard to come by after an....apocalypse.

Don't mention to DC that cats licking someone can't resurrect them.

Don't mention to Tony Stark what a temporal paradox is.

Don't mention to anyone that Jeffrey Epstein didn't...
Hang on...

 

[Awesumnus Maximus]

Now you leave randy andy out of this...

 

[Achtung-Goomba]

... and don't tell Hello Games about this inconsistency as Tritium is mined by shooting at asteroids in NMS!

Dammit, that’s two games I have to uninstall now...

 

[Michael Whatever]

I'm not certain that it is quite as simple as that.

Clearly if tritium was not being continually produced by natural processes then the abundance of it would reduce as expected from half-life data.
However, we know that tritium IS continuously being produced.
On Earth we "know" naturally produced tritium levels are in equilibrium as it is produced by the action of cosmic rays on atmospheric nitrogen.
So no, in the wild, tritium levels on the one solar body we have hard data for show that its levels are stable and that it will not be impossible to find.

In space data is unsurprisingly harder to find.
With regards how we mine tritium in game we can discount atmospheric production, but without magnetic shielding cosmic ray interactions are much higher and there are suggested mechanisms for tritium production by interaction with solid matter. This is backed up by the presence of tritium in metallic and stone meteorites when analysed on Earth. The ratios of radioactive isotopes in these meteorites are as expected from the suggested mechanism of natural tritium production.

That is not to say I am arguing that Tritium is abundant in space, merely that it is (likely to be) present to some extent.
Whether we could ever mine it efficiently is a technological issue.

 

[Awesumnus Maximus]

Call it handwavium...who cares?
It's something you need to run your fleet carrier.
It's a game.

 

[Stellar Shepherd]

I'm starting to think whichspace is a made up thing

 

[Awesumnus Maximus]

No. My whole suspension of disbelief would come crashing down if whichspace was not real.
Didn't hawking have a theory about it? Or Turing? Or somebody?

 

[Speedcuffs]

No. My whole suspension of disbelief would come crashing down if whichspace was not real.
Didn't hawking have a theory about it? Or Turing? Or somebody?

David Icke.

 

[Awesumnus Maximus]

David Icke.

Ah. Thankyou. I was being fascetious, but that's helpful.
I think.

 

[Ashnak]

Someone didn't do their research...
....

Yep .

You may want to read some articles about decay chains and nucleosynthesis. And maybe have a look at this abstract. Nature being what they are, access to the full article will cost you 9$ unless you can find a (university) library where you can look it up for free.

 

[Factabulous]

 

[Awesumnus Maximus]

So that's why Bill is stockpiling brommies...
edit: who else thinks Bill's portrait makes hi look like a zombie. I think he might be a Thargoid plant.

 

[Helvellyn]

Always sad when someone tries to handwave every flaw with "it's a game." Particularly one that often brags about its scale model of the galaxy. Yes, concessions to gameplay have to be made to make a decent game but some things just come across as lazy and the developers not caring because they think the players don't care - and in some cases sadly they're right.

 

[Awesumnus Maximus]

What would you like it called? Name it. Then call it that in your head. Or don't.
Seriously, it might as wel be supercalafragilisticum.
It doesn't matter.

 

[mkizub]

What would you like it called? Name it. Then call it that in your head. Or don't.
Seriously, it might as wel be supercalafragilisticum.
It doesn't matter.

It does matter. In this game, if our galaxy has Solar system and known stars and nebulas we can see at the sky - the game pretends to some level of realism.
(NMS has no Sol, and esists in another universe.)
ED can add things that can be invented in future - antigravity, subspace jumps, etc. But it can't state that stars are made from cheese, for example.
The same for tritium. It's an existing thing. In the game that simulates our galaxy we can't mine in in asteroids. But we can scoop it from stars.

Here's a list of isotopes that are similar to tritium (and can be used for nuclear fusion), but are stable - D, He3, Li6, Li7.