Cargo Containers - sizes?

[GarethL]

.
How large is a typical cargo container?

Now that I'm in front of a PC, here's what I came up with (as usual, YMMV):

https://www.dropbox.com/s/6s4l7ls67y0l5mx/Traveller-Freight.pdf?dl=0

They're 30 & 60t rather than the official 32 & 64t, but you get the idea,

Very rough-and-ready, but I also put this together:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/yubse9chfg8d5sh/traveller-freight-drawings.pdf?dl=0

 

[steve98052]

Laser beam collimation may be a good example here - unless you can improve collimation, energy density deposited on the target will drop off exponentially with range - a target at twice the range requires 4x the power to inflict the same "damage", etc.

Exponential? Really? Or do you mean the normal inverse square rule?

 

[GarethL]

The inverse square rule is an exponential relationship (albeit an inverse exponential relationship).

 

[steve98052]

The inverse square rule is an exponential relationship (albeit an inverse exponential relationship).

No, that's not correct. Inverse square is like this:

Energy received = energy transmitted / (distance)^2

Exponential would be like this:

Exponential = 2^(exponent)
or
Exponential = (0.5)^(exponent)
or
Exponential = (any other base)^(exponent)

 

[Infojunky]

Ok, Sports fans, went and actually looked up the Standard Container in CT. It's buried in the descriptions of the Far Trader.

A standard Container is approx. 3 x 3 x 6 meters, for a displacement of 3.85 tons.


In GW's IISS ship Files they introduce a 300 dTon external container.

 

[GarethL]

No, that's not correct. Inverse square is like this:

You are correct,

Perhaps I worded my initial point badly, the point was that required resources grow much more rapidly than the physical situation, and exponential growth, inverse square, power relationships, etc are examples of this.

As I said, just because a small-scale application works does not necessarily mean that you can scale your device up and expect it to work as well. Power requirements often scale rapidly, there are hard limits on material properties, etc.