Turbo-Impulse

Turbo-Impulse, despite the name, is not actually a new form of impulse engine design like the hyper-impulse drive.  Instead, it could be classified as more of an add-on instead.
Technically pre-dating hyper-impulse engines, turbo-impulse technology is considered out-dated by some.  However, it has currently seen a resurgence in support by designers in the Zodiac Empire.
Simply put, turbo-impulse hardware is very simple in design.  All it really does is add specialized injectors onto the integral fusion reactor that every impulse engine is built around.  These injectors allow for the injection of anti-matter directly into the reactor's fusion reaction.  While this has the effect of putting the reactor on overdrive, temporarily boosting the output allowing for an insane boost in speed, this comes at a cost as that anti-matter degrades the physical integrity of the reactor.  This means that this hardware must be utilized with restraint as overuse of the anti-matter injection could eat away at the reactor hardware until it breaches, this means ships that regularly utilize turbo-impulse will have to put into drydock on a regular basis for maintenance on a more repetitive schedule than otherwise.
When hyper-impulse was created, the removal of the 'speed limit' 0.25 c put into place due to temporal dilation effects meant turbo-impulse hardware saw less and less utilization.  However, recently, experts have realized how useful such turbo boosts of acceleration and speed, even though temporary, would be in case of an emergency.  When combine with hyper-impulse technology, turbo-impulse is capable of near-warp like speeds without the issues such speeds would otherwise have for anything traveling at so close to c.
Category:Engines
Category:Technology