Basic Power for Planetoid ships

[PsiTraveller]

The asteroid ship on pg 128 is a 300 ton ship. The basic power is listed as 60, 20 percent of the tonnage. Page 15 of Highguard has the power needs as the total tonnage of the hull, but in the case of an asteroid ship what power is the extra 20 percent using? gravity effects, but heat, light , life support? not so much.

Anyone else see an argument for power needs being the usable tonnage? or am I being too nitpicky and wanting to push the envelope too hard?

 

[Condottiere]

Basics should be based on usable tonnage.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Then we could say that space taken by armour and fuel does not need life-support. Soon we would have rationalised away most of the basic power need.

From MT we know that the artificial grav and inertial compensators must be installed for the entire ship, not a compartment here and there.

To keep it simple I calculate basic power on the entire ship.

 

[Condottiere]

Exactly how much power does inertial compensation require?

It should vary between one gee, or nine gee, or fifteen gee, or twenty four gee.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

In MT artificial grav requires 50 kW / m³ and inertial comp 20 kW / m³.

So a 100 dT (1350 m³) ship requires ~95 MW or perhaps 10 - 20 Power.

 

[PsiTraveller]

to be honest I am trying to write up a planetoid version of the pocket trader that Reynard posted to get the cost down even more (at the cost of losing streamlined and built in fuel scoops, which is a minus I admit).

So if I want 100 tons usable space I need 125 tons of planetoid. And that adds 5 points of power demand to the design, which is more power plant.

Just min-maxing as best I can. I accept the gravitic field answer, it makes sense and provides a simpler set of rules that is standard across all ships.

Coming soon to a thread near you the skipping stone trader. (I am at work so it is taking longer to type up than I anticipated. Damn people actually wanting work done when there is a ship to design)

 

[AnotherDilbert]

I think that will be difficult to get economical. Everything you save in the hull you lose out on the bigger jump drive?

 

[Spartan159]

Then we could say that space taken by armour and fuel does not need life-support. Soon we would have rationalised away most of the basic power need.

From MT we know that the artificial grav and inertial compensators must be installed for the entire ship, not a compartment here and there.

To keep it simple I calculate basic power on the entire ship.

It's simple enough to exclude rock and armor, I already house rule it. Fuel, on the other hand, needs to be kept chilled and from sloshing around. I don't believe armor take up space in MT either.

 

[PsiTraveller]

I think that will be difficult to get economical. Everything you save in the hull you lose out on the bigger jump drive?

Well as I look over the numbers for the Pocket Trader it cannot make money as it stands, not really. But as for my Rock Ship, at 125 tons it loses money each month if it has a mortgage. Unless you are running spec cargo and making a profit you lose money on shipping freight.

I am redoing it to go J2 at 200 tons and adding 75 tons of external cargo mounts to make freight profitable.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Then we could say that space taken by armour ... does not need life-support.

I don't believe armor take up space in MT either.

Correct, armour did not take space, but had mass, which could have secondary effects. MT keeps track of space and mass separately, instead of just displacement tonnage.

 

[Condottiere]

It's a trade off between what you save on hull costs against additional engineering capacity costs.

 

[PsiTraveller]

A planetoid loses the 20 percent of volume but gains the 2 Armour. Put the few million you save on hull and armour into Jump Drives and a Jump Net or cargo mounts and you can make a good living.