Air/Raft & Scout/Courier

[George Kelln]

Greetings,

First post on forum,

In High Guard, Scout/Courier (Page 110) list that the ship comes with an Air/Raft which has no weight listed. No according to the Vehicle Handbook (Page 95) has an Air/Raft has shipping weight of 4 tons.

Q1. Does a Scout/Courier come with an Air/Raft?
Q2. If it does come with one, is the Air/Raft's weight 0 tons? or
Q3. Does the Air/Raft's 4-tons come off the Scout/Courier's 12 ton cargo load?

Cheers

George

 

[Annatar Giftbringer]

Yes. No. No.

The Scout does have an air/raft, its displacement is 4 dt, but it’s stored within the docking space. Hence why it’s flagged as - rather than 4, same as with every smallcraft throughout the book, the hangar/docking space takes up space, the vehicles are carried within these.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Ships are measured in displacement tons, not mass tons.

A displacement ton is a volume of about 14 m³, the volume of one tonne of liquid hydrogen. I generally use Dton to avoid confusion with mass.

When we say that the air/raft has a "Shipping" of 4 Dtons it means it needs a garage of 4 displacement tons ≈ 56 m³ volume. As Annatar says that is the "Docking Space" in the ship description.

When the ship lists 12 tons of cargo it means a cargo compartment of 12 displacement tons of volume ≈ 168 m³. Since water has a mass of 1 tonne / m³ (metric ton mass), the cargo hold can hold 168 tonnes of water or similar liquids. Regular crated or palletised cargo might be in the range 100-200 tonnes.

See Core, p142:

The size of a ship, its components and cargo is measured in displacement tons, or simply tons. A displacement ton displaces a volume equal to one ton of liquid hydrogen. One displacement ton is roughly equal to 14 cubic metres.

 

[Condottiere]

Basically, it started off as one for one tonnage, so if a transported vehicle weighed four tonnes standard Terran gravity, it required four tonnes of volume onboard a spaceship.

It probably doesn't, but it simplifies cargo calculations.

I suppose vehicle spaces would be a slightly preciser method.