Ok so I've been thinking about designing a cargo lighter. Basically the idea is this - its just a flying flat surface designed to take things that can't lift to/from orbit. Kinda like a flying flatbed. It's not very fast, there's no need for it. It really just needs lift really. In some ways think of it as a self-propelled space barge.
So I was going over the design in my head, thinking about powerplants and maneuver drives and mass. I was figuring designing it as sort of a scaled model... starting off with something that can lift say 400 tons, then one at 1000tons, etc. It doesn't need a crew beyond a pilot and an assistant, and maybe a loadmaster. They don't do anything but drive it somewhere, load or unload, then go home. The powerplant needs to be sized for the proper amount of lift, and maybe some thrusters, but essentially everything it does is done through the anti-grav.
So any ideas on how to construct something like this so its somewhat canonical? All the design rules are oriented around ships, not something like this.
So I was going over the design in my head, thinking about powerplants and maneuver drives and mass. I was figuring designing it as sort of a scaled model... starting off with something that can lift say 400 tons, then one at 1000tons, etc. It doesn't need a crew beyond a pilot and an assistant, and maybe a loadmaster. They don't do anything but drive it somewhere, load or unload, then go home. The powerplant needs to be sized for the proper amount of lift, and maybe some thrusters, but essentially everything it does is done through the anti-grav.
So any ideas on how to construct something like this so its somewhat canonical? All the design rules are oriented around ships, not something like this.
