NS Research and NS Engineering have developed many technologies over the years but not all have been the success that was hoped for. In this article we will examine three technologies which failed to be a success and have largely faded out of use.
H-Scoop
The H-Scoop gathers in "free" hydrogen as a ship travels through space, this can then be recycled in the engine to reduce the need for nuclear fuel. The H-Scoop was fitted to a number of ships including the Freedom 41B, Rome 46A and Pentekonter families. When developed it was hoped the H-Scoop could reduce nuclear fuel burn by up to 5%, unfortunately in practice the reduced burn was around 0.4%! One ship has reported 2% when it travelled through an area of space rich in fuel though this was a one off.
With the small reduction in fuel burn plus the extra costs of maintaining the scoop and filters the H-Scoop has not been rolled out to any other types NS operate or sell. The e-Core family of engines has proven much more effective in reducing costs, though the scoop can help with this. NS say they will maintain the scoops on current ships but will not develop the technology any more or add it to any other types.
FIDO-VR
FIDO-VR or Fully Immersive Distributed Operations - Virtual Reality was considered the hottest new technology breakthrough in the early 2100s, Dr Forbidden even called it the future of the DDS! FIDO-VR was a way to operate ships remotely, even using holo-projection to make it look like the remote crew were aboard the ship.
Unfortunately despite the great promise, FIDO-VR did not work so well in practice, especially in combat situations due to communication and computing bottlenecks. FIDO-VR has been quietly shelved but some parts of the technology such as remote monitoring and virtual assistance have been successfully rolled out to the entire fleet. The VR aspects have also been used for crew training.
Anti-matter weapons
After tangling with the Vosun-Voth Star Empire, NS found it had a weakness to their anti-matter spray cannons which could disrupt NS shields. NS added a similar weapon to it's later Type 35 cruisers. However, the weapon is hardly used due to advances in other weapons such as the Zip cannon. The anti-matter spray is very expensive to run.
NS are not going to add it to any other ships and it may be withdrawn from existing ships when they receive upgrades.
