Transfer of cargo in space

[PsiTraveller]

Just to check the rules, If you have two ships in space could they link cargo doors and transfer cargo? Page 143 of the Core book has a cargo hatch allowing 10% cargo to be transferred. So a Far Trader could transfer 6 tons of cargo to another ship while in space?

An UNREP system would allow more tonnage to be moved per hour. This is the advantage of the UNREP system. Am I reading the rules correctly? So shuffling cargo back and forth between ships by cargo hatch is a slower process.

[ruhalla]

There are good rules for this in the Pirates of Drinax book 1 P22

By hand you can move 1 ton every 1d6 minutes
By robot/drone 1 ton every 1d3 minutes
by grappling arm 1 ton per minute

As for the rule on P 143 i would read it as say a ship has a cargo space of 60 tons you could move 6 tons out at one time so using the list above 6 people could move cargo out the cargo hatch
at once

[AnotherDilbert]

By hand you can move 1 ton every 1d6 minutes

Shifting containers by hand in a few minutes is fast, very fast...



Unless you can mate cargo hatches, which presupposes similar size and shape, and no protruding parts of the ships are in the way, you would have to open the cargo hatches to open space. Unless you have a cargo air lock the entire cargo hold would depressurise, potentially damaging the cargo.

There are no hard rules, you have to look at the shapes of the ships and where the cargo hatches are located.

As you say, enough UNREP would take care of the problem.

[Condottiere]

UNREP is guaranteed commonality.

Other than that, there's a lot of ways to transfer goods, depending on the amount of care is required and what size and form they take.

You could load up the mass driver and shoot a pallet to another ship, which would unfold a net to catch it.

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

I believe these cargo movement rates would be accurate on a planetary surface, but I don't know that the same rates can be used for transferring cargo in space.

A cargo hatch is NOT a cargo airlock.

[Linwood]

By hand you can move 1 ton every 1d6 minutes

Shifting containers by hand in a few minutes is fast, very fast...

I think the time works okay when you consider 1 dton isn’t a lot bigger than a reclining easy chair. Most containers will be considerably larger, so 1D6 / dton minutes might be fairly close. You could add a DM for extended distances, cramped passageways, or cargo lifting tech (see Alien).

[PsiTraveller]

That's a pretty big reclining chair. A dton is 14 cubic meters (core book pg 142), so 12-14 reclining chairs?

A 1m3 tote https://www.plastic-mart.com/product/91 ... ce-275tote is forklift ready, and 14 of those, forklift ready! would be tough to move in 1d6 minutes.

So picture the Harrier stopping and boarding a Far Trader in a Drinax campaign. The Harrier is a rear loading ship. (picture on commerce raider book pg 16, description of aft cargo hatch on pg 15, with a retractable ramp.

So if the Harrier wants to link the aft cargo hatch with one of the side cargo hatches of a Far Trader and shuttle cargo onto the Harrier, is this possible? Or do the two ships have to decompress the cargo bays, open the doors and throw stuff across open space?

There is a cargo scoop at location 10, up a long hallway, with an L shaped turn at the end of it. Not the best design to be lugging stuff into the cargo bay.

Now an UNREP system at the back end would allow the fast loading of all sorts of goodies, but I am looking at smaller ships looking to transship cargo away from a starport and all the annoying paperwork and inspections.

[ruhalla]

the way i have been handling cargo loading offloading is that The weight is mitigated by Grav plate Cargo jacks or the ships turn off their cargo bay grav plates to allow for moving things.

[AnotherDilbert]

think the time works okay when you consider 1 dton isn’t a lot bigger than a reclining easy chair.

A standard TEU cargo container is 33 m³ so a little over 2 Dton.

We are talking about shifting something half the size of cargo container massing perhaps 10-15 tonnes by hand...

Another way of looking at it is in cardboard moving boxes. A standard Swedish moving box is about 0.073 m³, so roughly 200 boxes in a Dton. Can you get 200 heavy boxes out of the house into a van in a few minutes?


Yes, we can turn gravity off, but the cargo will still have mass, the thing that resists acceleration. It's like moving a train car, the wheels will remove the friction, but it will still resist being moved. And when you have managed to shift it, it will not stop of itself. It will take just as much effort to slow it down, as it took to get moving.

[Annatar Giftbringer]

Personally I assume that cargo hatches have extendable flexible tubes just like airlocks, so they can attach to matching hatches on other ships or stations for cargo transfer.

If the two hatches aren’t compatible even with the tubes, I’ll just assume the flex tubes attaches to the hull around the smaller cargo hatch.

I also give both airlocks and cargo hatches deployable ramps (or ladders, depending on design) that can be used while landed, or as a solid floor to walk on when the flex tubes are extended between two ships.

The flexible tube can also be used while grounded to create a foul weather-proof environment on the ramp. Steep slopes and heavy rain makes for slippery walkways.

[Condottiere]

Probably why they have standardized containers and pallets.

[phavoc]

There needs to be a clarification of the type of cargo here, and the conditions of transfer. Obviously if it's something that occurs more than rarely you'd have an apparatus to help transfer cargo. If you had two cargo bays close to one another, once you got the container (of any size) moving on the trajectory you wanted it would then continue on it's course to the other cargo bay. That would work with a crate, or a 10 dton container. Though I'd suspect you'd be slowly moving said cargo since it has mass and crunching against your ship is not a good way to keep the goods in one piece.

And, speaking of containers, if the ship is a lander then more than likely the containers are not vacuum-proofed, ergo a vacuum transfer could possibly damage the cargo, depending on what it is you are stealing.

I can't imagine pirates hitting a free trader and then carrying over every crate individually (or holding guns on the FT crew and making them carry it all over).

I say use your best judgement based on what it is they are trying to transload, and also the configuration of the two ships.

[PsiTraveller]

Well that's why I was asking the hive mind what they use. In my mind there may be ships that cannot let loose cargo in space. They will not have flexible connector tubes that can connect to another ship. (That to me might be part of the UNREP system, but even that needs to be better described.)

And if a ship is a lander, is there a section inside the outer door that can be filled with 10% of cargo like on pg 143, that will allow a ship to move cargo out to a moon? They could then take on more cargo, 10% at a time, to refill their hold. If it was an airless moon the cargo containers would need to be vacuum rated.

The cargo hatch idea would allow a ship to drop 10% cargo at a time in space to let another ship cargo scoop it. Non vacuum rated cargo would be exposed to conditions and possibly damaged or destroyed.

Or can ships connect somehow and allow transfer of people and goods in space without having to suit up and sail across a vacuum?

[Condottiere]

Vacuum packed.

[AnotherDilbert]

And if a ship is a lander, is there a section inside the outer door that can be filled with 10% of cargo like on pg 143, that will allow a ship to move cargo out to a moon?

Cargo air lock? It's a separate system, see HG p44.

[PsiTraveller]

Ships with cargo space have cargo hatches, allowing up
to 10% of their cargo to be transferred at any one time.

That's Core Book pg 143

Highguard Pg 44 has
Airlocks consume a minimum of 2 tons and cost MCr0.1
per ton. Larger airlocks can be used for cargo bays.

So which is correct? What can a cargo hatch in the Core book do with 10% of its cargo at any one time? Is that 10% unloaded on the ground at once? So a ship with 60 tons of cargo space can only load up to 6 ton cargo modules? Or is the 10% the amount that can be transferred out in space through an airlock type system?

[AndrewW]

So which is correct? What can a cargo hatch in the Core book do with 10% of its cargo at any one time? Is that 10% unloaded on the ground at once? So a ship with 60 tons of cargo space can only load up to 6 ton cargo modules? Or is the 10% the amount that can be transferred out in space through an airlock type system?

Both. Cargo hatches are not airlocks.

[Condottiere]

There are options to carry cargo externally.

Presuming the cargo is secured against vacuum, the crew airlock could be placed at one end of the cargo hold, and the external hatch at the other end, and how much and at what speed cargo can be loaded or unloaded in the exposed cargo hold would depend on the handling equipment available, and the size of the hatch.

[AnotherDilbert]

So which is correct? What can a cargo hatch in the Core book do with 10% of its cargo at any one time? Is that 10% unloaded on the ground at once? So a ship with 60 tons of cargo space can only load up to 6 ton cargo modules?

A hatch is just a hole in the hull... Presumably the 10% is how much cargo can be moved through the hatch at the same time.

If you have a 60 Dt cargo hold, something like the 6 Dt closest to the hatch can be removed without disturbing the rest of the cargo. Without a cargo air lock the entire cargo hold becomes an "air lock".

[HalC]

Dumb question time: in zero g of space, why can't you equip a wall with grav plates any have cargo fall towards the Grav plate from one ship towards the other?