Fessor Cargo Multipurpose Ship

[snrdg121408]

Hello PsiTraveller,

The ship at 400 tons has 15 tons of armor, as per the rules.

It could simply be that the authors decided to not go into decimal calculations and gave the 49 ton sections 2 tons each, for 8 tons, and left the 7 tons on the core unit. It makes all the math simpler for using the ship in combat. Is it completely accurate, no.

The problem is that the numbers only work in combat when the four pods are attached to the core hull and only when the pods mount the same level of armor as the core hull.

The four 49 ton pods make up the listed Breakaway Hull (196 tons) and the 4 tons is the extra bulkheads and connectors required for them to dock with the core hull. However, my understanding of the Breakaway hull instructions the tonnage required for extra bulkheads and connectors is determined by the combined hull tonnage which in this case is 400 tons not the total tonnage of the pods.

[PsiTraveller]

In the other thread we saw how the Fessor is missing 4 tons of connectors, but for armor calculation that does not matter. (I just delted a ton from each sub ship cargo space and called it Connectors.

The issue is that all the pieces have 3 points of armor, and the 400 ton ship had 15 tons taken off it to account for it. They rounded the numbers to not get into 2 decimal places in the ship listings, but each sub unit and the Core ship have 3 points of armor each, and the 15 tons of armor is accounted for. How much more detailed do you need it to be? If it bothers you then go to the 2 decimal places, but overall does it matter in a game?


Now if the sub units had different amounts of armor, you might need to get a little more exact. And when designing your own, be as exact as you want. The Fessor ship has some glitches in the design. I like the concept, I've taken a stab at designing my own breakaway ship. I just cannot get it economically feasible.

[snrdg121408]

Hello ANotherDilbert,

What is the exact number of Pi?

π is an exact number. As it is an irrational number it can't be written exactly as a fraction, hence in decimal notation.

As far as I know we don't need to use any irrational numbers in the MgT2 ship design system.

According to the 200-ton Yacht's ship record sheet, HG 2e page 126/PDF page 127 the ship has 1 engineer. The crew requirements on HG 2e page 21/PDF page 22 has the requirement of 1 engineer per 35 tons of drives and power plant. The MD is 2 tons, JD is 10 tons and the power plant is 6 tons which is a total of 18 tons divided by 35 tons = 0.514285714285714. I'm not sure how you get 0.514285714285714 of a person.

You are correct, by RAW the Yacht needs no Engineer. But look at the "Small Ships" section on p20 of HG.

So, you can operate small ships without Engineers, but when something happens you may really want one.

The crew requirements are very soft. In order to recreate the crew requirements of the small ships in HG (basically lifted from LBB2), some values have to be rounded up and some values have to be rounded down, even if that is not what RAW says.

You are correct MgT2 does not use Pi and there is no exact decimal notation since Pi decimal notation does not end.

I have read the crew requirement for every version of Traveller I own they agree that the crew listings are effectively the recommended requirements. They all note that not having a dedicated crew position has negative consequences.

You can operate small ships without a dedicated Astrogator if the pilot is cross trained as one. For that matter a jump tape can be used which negates the immediate need for an Astrogator. Of course not having anyone with the Astrogator skill means that surviving a miss jump there is probably no way to get back home.

What a fine kettle of fish we have here since the RAW indicates what to do under a specific circumstance but can be modified when a circumstance needs to be modified for some unwritten reason.

Darn it I've drifted off the original topic again.

[snrdg121408]

Hello PsiTraveller,

In the other thread we saw how the Fessor is missing 4 tons of connectors, but for armor calculation that does not matter. (I just delted a ton from each sub ship cargo space and called it Connectors.

The issue is that all the pieces have 3 points of armor, and the 400 ton ship had 15 tons taken off it to account for it. They rounded the numbers to not get into 2 decimal places in the ship listings, but each sub unit and the Core ship have 3 points of armor each, and the 15 tons of armor is accounted for. How much more detailed do you need it to be? If it bothers you then go to the 2 decimal places, but overall does it matter in a game?

Now if the sub units had different amounts of armor, you might need to get a little more exact. And when designing your own, be as exact as you want. The Fessor ship has some glitches in the design. I like the concept, I've taken a stab at designing my own breakaway ship. I just cannot get it economically feasible.

If I understand correctly the listed 49-ton pod was reduced to 48-tons to account for the connectors.

In the Hull description block the entry is Breakaway Hull (196 tons) with 4 tons in the Tons column. My guess is that the 4 tons represents the total tonnage of the extra bulkheads and connectors. Dividing 4 tons by 4 results in each pod having 1 ton of extra bulkheads and connectors. The missing four tons would be for the core hull.

I'm not sure any of the published designs is really economically feasible, but then I was into electronics and did not try any economic courses beyond accounting.

[Condottiere]

Breakaway hulls can have separate armour factors, but that should be based on exactly how much armour is allocated, not a collective sum that can be distributed discretely.

[snrdg121408]

Hello Condottiere,

Breakaway hulls can have separate armour factors, but that should be based on exactly how much armour is allocated, not a collective sum that can be distributed discretely.

All five of the Fessor's sections have the same 3 points (factors?) of crystaliron armor. The 3 points (factors?) of crystaliron armor for one 49 ton pod is 2 tons per the record sheet. The 204 ton section's 3 points (factors?) of crystaliron armor is 7 tons. When all five sections are combined into one 400 ton hull it has 3 points (factors?) of crystaliron armor that collectively weighs 15 tons.

For the 400 ton hull the armor factor is not a collective sum but the tonnage of the five sections is the combined tonnage of the armor.

[Condottiere]

One and a quarter percent per armour factor.

1.8375 tonnes for armour factor three per forty nine tonnes.

[PsiTraveller]

The ship is not reduced to 48 tons. There needs to be 8 tons of connectors on the 400 ton ship. Only 4 tons are listed on page 4. They messed up on the math and gave 2 percent of the 196 tons for connectors. Ooops on their part. SO we need to add another 4 tons.

Now on page 4 the 4 tons of connectors is listed on the Core part of the ship, with the 196 tons listed under Breakaway. So this works out. 2 percent of the 204 tons is 4 tons (ignoring the 2 percent of 4, handwave it away). SO you need to account for 4 more tons on the 196 tons of breakaway units, on pages 6-10. 2 percent of 49 is 1 ton, so each sub unit has to lose 1 ton from somewhere to list 1 ton of Connector tonnage. The simplest fix is to reduce whatever tonnage is listed as "Cargo" by 1 ton, and list 1 ton as "Breakaway Connector".

SO then you have a 49 ton ship with 1 ton of connector and slightly less cargo space. The math all works out and the ship follows the rules again. Easy fix. A 400 ton ship has 4 tons on the core unit, and 1 ton on each of the sub units. 8 tons total.

[snrdg121408]

Hello PsiTraveller,

The ship is not reduced to 48 tons. There needs to be 8 tons of connectors on the 400 ton ship. Only 4 tons are listed on page 4. They messed up on the math and gave 2 percent of the 196 tons for connectors. Ooops on their part. SO we need to add another 4 tons.

Now on page 4 the 4 tons of connectors is listed on the Core part of the ship, with the 196 tons listed under Breakaway. So this works out. 2 percent of the 204 tons is 4 tons (ignoring the 2 percent of 4, handwave it away). SO you need to account for 4 more tons on the 196 tons of breakaway units, on pages 6-10. 2 percent of 49 is 1 ton, so each sub unit has to lose 1 ton from somewhere to list 1 ton of Connector tonnage. The simplest fix is to reduce whatever tonnage is listed as "Cargo" by 1 ton, and list 1 ton as "Breakaway Connector".

SO then you have a 49 ton ship with 1 ton of connector and slightly less cargo space. The math all works out and the ship follows the rules again. Easy fix. A 400 ton ship has 4 tons on the core unit, and 1 ton on each of the sub units. 8 tons total.

Thank you for the clarification.

My math agrees that the combined 400 ton hull requires 8 tons of connectors. The core hull requires 4 tons of extra bulkheads and connectors with each pod needing 1 ton of extra bulkheads and connectors.

My understanding of the first entry in the Hull section on page 4 shows that the Fessor has combined hull of 400 tons.

The second entry appears to be the combined tonnage of the four 49 ton pods that require a combined total of 4 tons for the extra bulkheads and connectors.

Adding the 200 ton core hull to the 196 tons of the four pods equals 396 tons. If the pods are really 49 tons each the core hull is 204 tons to achieve the 400 ton combined hull.

Increasing the hull to 204 tons with the combined pod tonnage of 196 = a hull with a combined tonnage of 400 tons.

An alternative is that by adding 196 tons with 4 tons the combined tonnage of the pods, extra bulkheads, and connectors bring the total 200 tons which suggests that the pods are really 50 tons not 49.

The, in my opinion, best solution is to increase the pod from 49 tons to 50 tons, correct the Breakaway Hull to (400 tons) and 8 tons.

The funny thing is when I've totaled the Tons I get 398 tons

[PsiTraveller]

?? I get 202, and they are missing 2 tons from not adding 1 ton each fore the 2 pop up turrets. A turret is 1 ton, a pop up turret is 2 tons.

[snrdg121408]

Morning PsiTraveller,

?? I get 202, and they are missing 2 tons from not adding 1 ton each fore the 2 pop up turrets. A turret is 1 ton, a pop up turret is 2 tons.

My calculation also returns 202 which includes the 2 Pop-up turrets listed without the additional tonnage for the pop-up mechanism. So far I've gotten to the core hull's software section so thank you for the heads up about the pop-up turret. The pop-up mounting adds 1 ton to a turret bring the turrets total to 2 ton. Adding the 2 tons brings the core hull from 202 to 204 tons.

I think that the candle flickered on after about twenty or thirty odd matches being struck. The four pods record sheets Hull blocks I think would be modified to have entries of Breakaway Hull (? tons) with 1 in the Tons column and 2,000,000 in the Cost (Cr) column.

A Cargo pod's cargo capacity drops to 43.5 tons, the Passenger pod's cargo capacity would be 8.5, a Medical pod's cargo capacity is 11 tons, remote mining pod's cargo capacity decreases to 21, and the fuel collection pod fuel capacity would be 41.5 tons.
Am I on the right track now?

I noticed that there may be another issue this one concerning the pod fuel tankage.

I have not gotten to the pods to calculate the weeks of operation. The cargo and passenger pods with 0.5 tons of fuel have an operational duration of 12 weeks. With the same 0.5 tons of fuel the medical and mining pods can only operate for 10 weeks. The fuel pod, per the original record sheet, has 42.5 tons of fuel and can operate for 12 weeks. Personally, I think the the fuel collected and processed in the fuel collection pod should be listed as cargo with the fuel tanks as 0.5 tons.

Checking HG 2e page 17/PDF page 18 under the Power Plant section is this entry: "Other power plants require fuel tankage to 10% of their size (rounding up, minimum 1 ton). This provides enough fuel for the power plant to operate for a month (four weeks). This can be extended further by increasing the fuel tankage for the power plant (so, doubling it will provide enough fuel for eight weeks, and so on)."

Technically, the cargo and passenger pods operational duration of 12 weeks should have 3 tons of fuel. The medical and mining pods duration of 10 weeks would need 2.5 tons of fuel. The fuel collection pod, per the record sheet, has 42.5 tons of fuel tank which following the text and I'm doing it correctly fives the pod an operational duration of 170 weeks.

In my soft cover HG 1e page 59 has a table at the bottom of the page for a fusion power plant listing the fuel tank requirement to operate for 2 weeks. There is an inset block that modifies the base fuel requirement for different operation times of less than the two week of operation on one ton of fuel.

Personally, I have disagreed with the small craft requirement of carrying a minimum of 1 ton of fuel that lasts for 4 weeks.

Dropping the minimum of 1 ton of fuel and keeping requirement that the power plant requires fuel tankage of 10% plant tonnage that lasts for 4 weeks a pods 2 ton power plant requires a minimum of 0.2 tons fuel tankage to operate for 4 weeks. Installing 0.5 tons of fuel tankage would give a pod an operational duration of 10 weeks. To get 12 weeks of operation, I think, would require 0.6 tons of fuel.

How far out in a field am I on this one?

[PsiTraveller]

That looks good to me. We are getting the same numbers.

[snrdg121408]

Hi PsiTraveller,

That looks good to me. We are getting the same numbers.

Thank you for confirming that I appear to finally be on the same page.

Part of my confusion has been trying to run the core hull and then the pods through my working copy of a construction spreadsheet. I've decided to start over and create one for just a breakaway hull. I'm done with Step 1 but I'm also adding the components that seem to be for the hull in Step 9 and the crew requirements based on hull tonnage from Step 10.

[dmccoy1693]

Wow. It looks like a rolled a 2 when designing this one. I'll look into fixing it.

[snrdg121408]

Hello dmccpy1693, a.k.a. Dale McCoy, Jr.,

Wow. It looks like a rolled a 2 when designing this one. I'll look into fixing it.

Thank you for checking out the topic thread and I'll disagree with the rolling of a 2 on the design.

I really like the design, especially since the Fessor is an attempt, in my opinion, of how to design a complete breakaway hull. The example in MgT HG 2e is good at showing how the power plants, maneuver drives, and jump drives work together when the hulls are combined.

The Fessor overall has helped me in figuring out how to build a breakaway hull design and made me ask questions when I did not get the same results.

In my opinion the roll is probably a six.

[snrdg121408]

Morning all from Roy, WA all,

Slightly off topic, but I received a PM asking for my email address which when I set up my account I thought I had selected "Yes" about contact by email. To my surprise when checking my profile the selection was no. I have corrected the issue and would like confirmation by someone that they can contact me by email please.

[snrdg121408]

Hello all,

I'm still going through the Fessor's record sheet that has the first Hull block entry as 400 tons, 160 Hull Points on the fourth page.

The Fuel Tanks block has the entry of Operations for 4 Weeks, 1x Jump 1 and the Tons column entry of 42 tons. The Jump-1 drive requires 0.1 x 400 x 1 = 40 x 1 = 40 tons of leaving 2 tons of fuel for the 17 ton TL 8 energy efficient x2 fusion power plant.

HG 2e Step 4 page 17/PDF page 18 indicates that:

"Chemical Power Plants require 10 tons of fuel per ton of power plant every two weeks."

"Other power plants require fuel tankage equal to 10% of their size (rounding up, minimum of 1 ton). This provides enough fuel for the power plant for a month (four weeks)...."

A 17 ton fusion power plant requires 0.1 x 17 = 1.7 rounding up to 2 tons of fuel.

Each pod carries 0.5 tons of fuel for their power plants which is a total of 2 tons of power plant fuel.

Per the Breakaway Hull text the jump drives, power plants and maneuver drives combine to determine the composite hull's performance. The power plant's fuel tankage of the composite 400 ton hull I believe should 2 tons for the 17 ton power plant plus the combined 2 tons of fuel of the four pods. The operational duration should read 8 weeks and the fuel tons should be 44 tons.

How far out in a field am I on this one?

[AnotherDilbert]

The Fuel Tanks block has the entry of Operations for 4 Weeks, 1x Jump 1 and the Tons column entry of 42 tons. The Jump-1 drive requires 0.1 x 400 x 1 = 40 x 1 = 40 tons of leaving 2 tons of fuel for the 17 ton TL 8 energy efficient x2 fusion power plant.
...
Each pod carries 0.5 tons of fuel for their power plants which is a total of 2 tons of power plant fuel.

The rules are not exactly clear. I would call that reasonable, the total ship requires 42 Dt fuel, divided among the sections. Fuel is fungible, leave a little fuel in the jump fuel tank and the main section can run its power plant.


Note that if you treat each segment as a complete ship, each pod section should presumably have 1 Dt and the main section 2 Dt, for a total of 6 Dt power plant fuel, still with only 4 weeks endurance.

[snrdg121408]

Hello AnotherDilbert,

The Fuel Tanks block has the entry of Operations for 4 Weeks, 1x Jump 1 and the Tons column entry of 42 tons. The Jump-1 drive requires 0.1 x 400 x 1 = 40 x 1 = 40 tons of leaving 2 tons of fuel for the 17 ton TL 8 energy efficient x2 fusion power plant.
...
Each pod carries 0.5 tons of fuel for their power plants which is a total of 2 tons of power plant fuel.

The rules are not exactly clear. I would call that reasonable, the total ship requires 42 Dt fuel, divided among the sections. Fuel is fungible, leave a little fuel in the jump fuel tank and the main section can run its power plant.

Note that if you treat each segment as a complete ship, each pod section should presumably have 1 Dt and the main section 2 Dt, for a total of 6 Dt power plant fuel, still with only 4 weeks endurance.

Thank you for letting me know I'm on the right track.

I've run a test using a standard 400 ton hull which matches the maneuver drive, power plant, and jump drive tonnages on the Fessor's combined 400 ton. The MD does not require fuel. The 15 ton J-1 Drive on a standard 400 ton hull requires 0.1 x 400 x 1 = 40 x 1 = 40 tons of fuel.

Per the Power Plant fuel requirements all other power plants require fuel tankage equal to 10% of their size (rounding up, minimum of 1 ton) which provides enough fuel for 4 weeks.

The 17 ton TL 8 Energy Efficient x2 Fusion Power Plant actually requires 0.1 x 17 = 1.7 tons of fuel to operate for 4 weeks, however the instructions requires rounding up to 2 tons for 4 weeks of operational endurance on a standard 400 ton hull.

Following the Breakaway hull instructions the power plants of the of all the sections combine together to make a single power plant. Each pod has a 1.5 ton TL 8 Fusion power plant combining to create a 6 ton power plant. The composite 400 ton hull's core section's power plant is 17 - 6 = 11 tons. The combined pod 6 ton power plant has a combined fuel tankage of 2 tons as written or 4 tons using the RAW. The Fessor's core section's 11 ton power plant requires .1 x 11 = 1.1 = 2 tons of fuel.

When the 11 ton power plant and 2 tons of fuel of the core hull section is combined with the four pods 6 ton power plant and 2 tons or 4 tons makes a combined 400 ton hull with a 17 ton power plant and 4 tons or 6 tons of fuel. The fuel requirement is 2 tons of fuel allows 4 weeks of operational endurance. The combined pod tankage of 2 tons plus the is 2 of the core hull section is 4 tons the operational endurance is 8 weeks . With a combined 6 tons of fuel the duration should be 12 weeks.

I am not a fan of small craft requiring a minimum of 1 ton of fuel and that fuel only lasting 4 weeks for all the power plants except a chemical plant. The chemical plant's 10 ton per 2 weeks does not, in my opinion, make sense for a small craft either.

[AndrewW]

Following the Breakaway hull instructions the power plants of the of all the sections combine together to make a single power plant. Each pod has a 1.5 ton TL 8 Fusion power plant combining to create a 6 ton power plant. The composite 400 ton hull's core section's power plant is 17 - 6 = 11 tons. The combined pod 6 ton power plant has a combined fuel tankage of 2 tons as written or 4 tons using the RAW. The Fessor's core section's 11 ton power plant requires .1 x 11 = 1.1 = 2 tons of fuel.

When the 11 ton power plant and 2 tons of fuel of the core hull section is combined with the four pods 6 ton power plant and 2 tons or 4 tons makes a combined 400 ton hull with a 17 ton power plant and 4 tons or 6 tons of fuel. The fuel requirement is 2 tons of fuel allows 4 weeks of operational endurance. The combined pod tankage of 2 tons plus the is 2 of the core hull section is 4 tons the operational endurance is 8 weeks . With a combined 6 tons of fuel the duration should be 12 weeks.

Power plants are combined in terms of power output, the power can be used for any item even if it is located in a separate section of the ship, but they are still separate power plants and have their own fuel requirements, not combined. Although they can pull that fuel from any part of the ships fuel tanks.