TL 14 Collectors In High Guard

[fusor]

People (me included and I'm trying hard not to) let's stop being drawn in to these non-topic marc hating, Traveller bashing diatribes that have been train wrecking nearly every topic on this forum.

Nobody is forcing you to take part in or read this or any discussion. If you "can't stop yourself from taking part" then that's your own responsibility. And personal attacks like the one you're making here don't contribute anything useful to the discussion.

[Reynard]

Problem is you're regularly high jacking every thread to push out the topics for your own regular whinings that increasingly have nothing to do with the thread. That is forcing people off threads they wanted to read. You could easily start threads on your favorite rant but instead purposely flood other threads just to pull attention to you. I've abandoned several threads because of this. I DO want to read the topic of these threads but you make sure we can't.

[fusor]

Problem is you're regularly high jacking every thread to push out the topics for your own regular whinings that increasingly have nothing to do with the thread. That is forcing people off threads they wanted to read. You could easily start threads on your favorite rant but instead purposely flood other threads just to pull attention to you. I've abandoned several threads because of this. I DO want to read the topic of these threads but you make sure we can't.

There's nothing stopping you from talking about Collectors here, nothing at all. I'm not stopping anyone from doing that either. The OP presented something new from the HG book and said "what do you think?". So I'm saying what I think, and at least some people seem happy to discuss that with me (and we are discussing, not arguing or anything), so why should that be stopped? And even if it should go elsewhere, the mods could easily split the supposedly off-topic posts into a separate thread if they wanted to. Though I don't think it's off-topic to discuss the implications of adding Collectors to the game and what that means for what is or isn't canon or 3I.

But If you want to talk about what you think about Collectors themselves then go right ahead. I'm not stopping you.

[PsiTraveller]

So looking at the Annic Nova Collectors the ship is listed as 600 tons with a J3 and a J2 drive. The Collector is 23 tons. Collector rules are percentage plus 5 tons, so that would mean 18 tons of Collector.
1% of hull is 6 Tons time a Jump 3 is 18 Tons.

Is this math right?

A harsher set of math would be to take 1% of hull times the Distance you want to jump, so Jump 3 in a 600 ton ship would be 6 time 3 for 18 percent of hull(plus 5 tons) It is still less than half the fuel tankage L Hyd would take up, but is more of a bite plus it has a 1 week collection time. It depends on how nasty you want to be.

A 600 ton ship J3 would normally need 180 tons of fuel. This is worth 90 000 Credits a Jump. The Collector will allow 157 more tons of cargo worth 3000 Credits per Ton per Jump. As a trading company I would want one. Even with the 1 week wait time that is almost half a million extra per Jump. That pays off a lot of bills.

[Belisknar]

I think the place that Collectors can really shine is with jump shuttles.

Small ships that are mostly jump drive and collectors that just need to be able to clamp onto bigger ships.

[PsiTraveller]

Nice application! Battle Tenders would work well at this as well. Any heavy lift really. Oversize the Collector to match the Jump Drive. So you 400 Ton ship with staterooms and living space has Jump Drive and Collector sized for a 1000 or 2000 movement. Add in a Docking Clamp and you haul large SDB's without having to have a huge amount of fuel.

Let's figure a 2000 total movement at J3. 7.5% of 2000 Tons if 150 tons, plus 5 tons is 155 tons of Jump Engines. 1% Collector per ton moved will be 20 tons time J3 is 60 tons plus 5 for 65 total. So 235 tons of Jump Engines and Collectors.
Normally 2000 J3 would need 600 tons of fuel for the J3 engine, so you save a 535 tons of space.
235 tons of space will likely need a 500 ton hull to fit the M-Drive, bridge and other gear like a Type 4 docking Clamp. So you could offer a J3 shuttle service for up to 1500 Tons of ships.

If you had external Cargo mounts your Jump could be worth 4.5 Million Credits per Jump. That is pretty good income. 9 Million a month would pay off a 500 ton ship pretty quick.

I might be able to squeeze everything into a 400 ton hull and save 5 Million in Hull Cost. I will have to check. I am just typing this stuff in on the fly. I may post a version on the Collector Shuttle in a little bit.

[MongooseMatt]

I might be able to squeeze everything into a 400 ton hull and save 5 Million in Hull Cost. I will have to check. I am just typing this stuff in on the fly. I may post a version on the Collector Shuttle in a little bit.

You see, this is why I like Traveller players It is seriously cool seeing where you guys take the books!

[Belisknar]

Nice application! Battle Tenders would work well at this as well. Any heavy lift really. Oversize the Collector to match the Jump Drive. So you 400 Ton ship with staterooms and living space has Jump Drive and Collector sized for a 1000 or 2000 movement. Add in a Docking Clamp and you haul large SDB's without having to have a huge amount of fuel.

Let's figure a 2000 total movement at J3. 7.5% of 2000 Tons if 150 tons, plus 5 tons is 155 tons of Jump Engines. 1% Collector per ton moved will be 20 tons time J3 is 60 tons plus 5 for 65 total. So 235 tons of Jump Engines and Collectors.
Normally 2000 J3 would need 600 tons of fuel for the J3 engine, so you save a 535 tons of space.
235 tons of space will likely need a 500 ton hull to fit the M-Drive, bridge and other gear like a Type 4 docking Clamp. So you could offer a J3 shuttle service for up to 1500 Tons of ships.

If you had external Cargo mounts your Jump could be worth 4.5 Million Credits per Jump. That is pretty good income. 9 Million a month would pay off a 500 ton ship pretty quick.

I might be able to squeeze everything into a 400 ton hull and save 5 Million in Hull Cost. I will have to check. I am just typing this stuff in on the fly. I may post a version on the Collector Shuttle in a little bit.

Modify you're assumption, your max carry weight with that type of clamp is 2,000 Tons so assume your shuttle will be carrying at least that plus it's own weight. with at 400 Ton you're looking at 7.5% of 2400 so (180+5) 185 Tons of Jump Drive. It's not going to need the most powerful M drive since it needs to spend at least a week of it's journey spooling up the collectors so if we give it Thrust 2 just to kick it off towards the jump the point or back towards the plannet. We're looking at 2% of the 400 ton hull so another 8 Tons bringing us up to 193.

Powerplant we could go with 12 Tons for a TL 12 fusion. brining us up to 205, (and now 2 tons of fule for the Plant) 207

20 Ton bringe (though we can squeeze that down if we need to) 227

5 staterooms (20 Tons) 247

Common Area (5 Tons) 252

Type 4 Clamp (20 Tons) 272

Sensors... wouldn't need any better than Military Grade so (2 Tons) 274

Now when we come to the collectors themselves this is where I'm running into the issue... it's 1% of the ships tonnage... So do we assume that we need to have it 1% of the Max Tonnage that the ship can jump, or just 1% of the 400 Ton ship. Because that is a big difference.

If we go by the size of the Jump Shuttle. It's 25 Tons of collectors(Assuming we build the Drive at TL-14) Which would make sense to do as it would allow the shuttle to move up to J-5 carrying lighter loads. All Keeping the Ship at TL-14.

If the collector size is calculated by the size of the ship they are on rather than the ship they are jumping the whole thing could be stuck into te 300 Ton hull I think. as you'd know another 9 tons off the drives and 5 Tons off the collectors by doing that.

If we go by the Max Jump Tonnage it's 77 Tons of Collectors. Again keeping the drives at TL-14 we can do all the same stuff as above and we've got another 51 Tons to play around with.

I'd probalby throw Some kind of small craft to roudn it out. possible some extra staterooms.

Edited to fix Collector mistake that AnotherDilbert made me aware of.

[AnotherDilbert]

Collector Jump Tug
400 dT, J-3, M-2, MCr 570
Can do J-3 with a total 2400 dT.
3 Clamps Type IV (max 2000 dT each)

Code: Select all

TL 15            Hull  160                                        569,2    
                            Desired    ∆TL    Rat    #    dTon    Cost    Power
Hull                           400                         400              80
Config          Streamlined      2             2            24    
Hull strength   Standard         2             2                
                                
Jump Size                     2400                        
JumpD       High Technology      3      3      3     1     130    291      120
ManœuvreD   High Technology      2      3      2     1      34    101       80
PowerP (TL12)  High Technology          3            1       9     14      201

Collector                        3             3     1      77    116    

Fuel, Jump                                
Fuel, Power                     20            20     1       5        
Fuel Purification             24 h          24 h     1       1      0        1
                                
                                
Bridge                           1                   1      20      2    
    Holographic                  1                   1              1    
Comp           m/15              3            15     1              2    
Backup Comp    m/10/bis          2      1     10     1              0    
                                
Sensors        Basic                                 1            
                                
Staterooms                    100%            11    11      44      6    
Common Areas                   25%           25%     1      11      1    
Escape Capsule                   1                  22      11      0  

Cargo                                                        4
                                
                                                        
                                
Docking Clamp     1 000 dT      3                    3      60     12    
                                
                                
                                
Software                                                            0    
Jump Control/3                                15                    0    
                                
                                
                                
Crew                 11                        
    Command           1                        
    Bridge            2                        
        Pilot               1                    
        Astrogator          1                    
        Sensor & EW                            
    Engineer          7                        
        Engineer            6                    
        Maintenance         0,4                    
    Service           1                        
        Admin               0,2                    
        Medic               0,076666667                    
        Steward             0
    Gunner        
    Flight        
    Troops            0     

I had to miniaturise the drives to carry 2000 dT.

Collectors would combine well with a Breakaway hull, leave a section of the ship in orbit with the collector and land with the payload.

Edit: Corrected collector calculation.

[Belisknar]

damnit... Just saw my collector mistake...

The Breakaway section with the collectors seems like a pretty good idea.

EDIT: I just now saw that your tug has 3 Clamps... and it dawned on me that thing can pull 6k tons of cargo/ships at J-1 in that config... It might be a bit slow but for it's size it's cost per ton is insanely good when you think about it.

[Reynard]

"Nice application! Battle Tenders would work well at this as well."

I'm not so sure warships benefit well with collectors. Unlike normal commercial vessels, warships usually have to be prepared to run if things go poorly. This is why they attempt to take gas giants as a priority, use drop tanks to have full jump fuel at exit or come in with fuel tankers. The idea you're going to into combat needing a week of charging to escape is not very bright unless it's a suicide mission.

The original Annic Nova Accumulator system described a canopy that unfolds and extends large to capture the energy. The book was lacking in details about the ship stats and the effects of combat on the canopy. Whether folded or extended, where would the canopy be on the critical damage chart? Damage to this should seriously effect Collectors. Damage should extend the time it takes to recharge until the collector is destroyed. Another reason they aren't good for warships.

Is a week to recharge for a jump really commercially effective? It normally doesn't take long to transit from jump point to destination and back to jump. That means a ship need to sit in orbit (not planetside) when not moving. You cannot haste this. That is a big restriction for any ship with collectors especially traders and freighters. Most often, you must have Highports which may or may not accommodate those canopies when docked depending on how common that particular TL 14 system is. You might be dependent on shuttle service away from the station while charging. In a way, a collector ship mounting cutter modules could be a solution. Hmmm.

[alex_greene]

I'm not so sure warships benefit well with collectors

You haven't seen what his warships are designed to do.

[AnotherDilbert]

I'm not so sure warships benefit well with collectors.

I agree, they would need multiple collectors or J-1 fuel to be able to jump out of a bad situation.

[Reynard]

I would be very interested to see the design and analyze the benefit of collectors on a battle tender. At the moment, I see battle riders going into combat as the tender sits in rearguard recharging. If for any reason the riders return to escape.... the tender is still recharging for the remainder of a week. Did I miss something?

AD, I don't believe multiple collectors would be efficient IF they can work together. That's 7 times the size and costs. And I think a jump using a collector isn't 'wired' to use an alternate energy producer.

[alex_greene]

the tender is still recharging for the remainder of a week.

Recharging and restocking. I've a feeling that the Belt Mining chapter can come in exceptionally handy in a war situation, when those Seekers come in marking useful asteroids for big ships with on-board mineral refineries and manufacturing decks to munch on.

They could deploy solar panels and just sit there for weeks outsystem, churning out high tech missiles, ordnance, Ortillery rounds, torpedoes ...

[PsiTraveller]

My attempt. 400 Ton Hull. TL 15. My power calculations are 0 for the Jump Drive because of the Collector.
For Belisknar: I calculate total Jump tonnage and then subtract the Hull of the ship doing the Jumping, so this ship moves 2000 Total tons, 400 of which are ship for 1600 tons of Cargo. If I want to move a 2000 Ton ship I need a bigger drive. I Clamp can carry up to 2000 Tons but my ship cannot. I accept the loss.
I added on 1600 tons of Cargo mounts so if no ships are being moved 1600 tons of cargo can be moved J3. This is worth 4.8 Million Credits.
Only 8 Staterooms so quarters are tight, double bunking will be needed. Operating Cost per month is just over 2 million so as a trade Ship you would make a pile of money moving ships or cargo of 1600 Tons.

Everything was lined up when I posted it, I do not know why it is all wonky now

Code: Select all

		
				Tons	   Price
Hull				400	 20
Armour			  0	   0
Jump 3 engine	      155	232
M-Drive 3			60	120
Collector			65	32.5
Power Plant		12	24
Fuel				2	0
Bridge			20	2
Holo Controls		0	0.5
Computer 25		0	10
Sensors Adv.		5	5.3
4 Turrets		        4	4
Type 4 Clamp		20	4
Clamp Airlock		2	0.2
Med Bay			4	4
Library			4	2
8 Staterooms		32	4
Common Area		8	0.8
Cargo 			5	0
Cargo Mounts		0	0.16
Total				398	465.46
			

[AnotherDilbert]

Everything was lined up when I posted it, I do not know why it is all wonky now

Make sure to use a monospaced font like Courier when you format the text.

[PsiTraveller]

Thanks for the font suggestion. I tried it. I think the problem is that the beginning of each line is of a different length. Hull is shorter than Jump Engine, and the spacing is off the end of each word. I'll keep fiddling around with it.

[alex_greene]

Thanks for the font suggestion. I tried it. I think the problem is that the beginning of each line is of a different length. Hull is shorter than Jump Engine, and the spacing is off the end of each word. I'll keep fiddling around with it.

Tabs work.
Mine line up because I format everything in a text editor like EditPad Lite and put leading spaces before the numbers so they all take up the exact same width in the columns.

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

I think the place that Collectors can really shine is with jump shuttles.

Small ships that are mostly jump drive and collectors that just need to be able to clamp onto bigger ships.

Would this be feasible for the X-boat network?

I know most ships are at major worlds, but given that the X-boat doesn't have an M-drive... would collectors make it more useful (but require more ships...)