On 24 Feb 2016 at 11:20, Craig Berry wrote:

> For routine operations, e.g. skimming or water/ice-harvesting on a
> properly equipped vessel, I usually take failures to mean that there
> is an equipment failure that resulted in less fuel being harvested
> than expected, and possibly further damage to the gear. E.g. the
> intake valves didn't open fully, a pump bearing froze, that sort of
> thing. The net result is you don't have all the fuel you were
> expecting, and you need to fix something to make another try at it.

> With a properly equipped and crewed vessel under normal conditions,
> this almost always just translates into an unexpected delay. Given
> that PC-controlled vessels are seldom properly equipped or crewed,
> and virtually never operate under normal conditions, outcomes in this
> specialized domain may be less positive. :>

Well, that chapter in Manxome Foe should give any good GM *lots* of
ideas for what could go wrong with ice mining. Especially if the crew
is improvising, rather than using the "proper" gear.

If you are refueling from a natural body of water, all *sdorts of
things could get sucked up. Or clog the filters.

And then there's the problem of just what is *dissolved* in that
water or ice. since "boiling" is a common first step at purification,
all kinds of crud could deposit from water (with ammonia and methane
ices, at least the stuff that precipitates out is less likely to bond
together into hard to remove deposits)

Worse, it could contain chemicals that will react with the pipes.
Highly alkaine water will dissolve a number of oxides, like titanium
oxide, aluminum oxide, silicon dioxide (I once ruined a pyrex beaker
by boiling a sodium hydroxide solution in it) etc.

Strip the oxide coat off of auluminim, titanium or magnesium and
it'll cheerfully react with water. Making more oxide (which also
dissolves) and hydrogen.

If they are electrolyzing water with a high salt content, the
chlorine will eat a lot of metals.

--
Leonard Erickson (aka shadow)
shadow at shadowgard dot com