Cargo Pod

[PsiTraveller]

Looking for advice/comments on a ship design

I am looking at a distributed ship design (to save on costs), but want to carry extra cargo to improve revenue. I could go with a Jump Net, but was looking at a Docking Clamp to offer ship transportation options. A Type 3 clamp can carry up to 300 tons of ship. I was thinking of a cargo pod of 200 tons to clamp to the ship. This would allow 200 tons of cargo to be moved per Jump, increasing revenue. The docking clamp would also get around the no external cargo mounts limitation of distributed hulls.

I had a thought for the hull of the cargo pod. Could it be considered a distributed type of hull and thus cost 50% of a regular hull? Or would my cargo pod be more expensive than the ship that is carrying it?

 

[DickTurpin]

The Jump Net will be far more economical and useful than a docking clamp and cargo pod. There is no reason why you could not carry a ship in the net, and a cargo pod would have to always be carried, placed in secure storage, or abandoned to get the flexibility to use the clamp for a ship.

If you really want to go with the cargo pod idea, I see no reason why it could not be built as a distributed hull.

 

[paltrysum]

You could also give the pod a light hull, reducing its cost a bit more.

 

[Reynard]

I did a ship as distributed, light frame and external cargo mounts meant to be spartan, efficient and cheap. ECMs do not require tonnage and is fairly cheap for the tonnage carried.

 

[PsiTraveller]

Distributed ships cannot have external cargo mounts.
pg 39 of Highguard under the external cargo mount entry
"Streamlined or distributed ships may not use external
cargo mounts."

Which kills my design of a # shape ship with M Drives and Jump drives in the bottom nodes, and the cargo mounts filling in the space in between. Sadly, no dice with RAW.

 

[Reynard]

Whoops. I'll have to look for the worksheet buried in that ream of ship designs and see if I missed that note. With my luck, I was thinking another ship, possibly a sphere, to get the lowest hull cost.

 

[Condottiere]

1. I'm more inclined to think that what occurs with external cargo mounts is that streamlining no longer applies.

2. You don't really need a jump net, if a normal one would keep the merchandize within the jump bubble.

3. By default, anything attached to a clamp would be within the jump bubble; anything that qualifies as a hull can be attached to that.

4. You can attach cargo to a cable and tow it; trying to do so if jumping is going to require careful calculation, since it has to be near enough to be within the jump bubble, and far enough not to bump into the primary hull.

5. Optionally, instead of a cable you can use a rigid tow bar or hitch.

 

[PsiTraveller]

RAW have anything in a docking clamp gets jumped (pg 43 under Docking Clamp). If not in a clamp you need a Jump Net. (pg 40)

Not in the rules, but makes sense to me is the need to have a tow cable if you are towing all the extra cargo to the Jump Point. This would be needed if all the cargo pods were attached into one big lump, or you had a single large pod with all the cargo stuffed into the large container. Otherwise you have to have a second ship bringing the extra cargo out to the Jump point and filling the net with the extra cargo.

Now the design I am working on is a 200 ton hull, with enough Jump engines for 400 tons, so Condottiere raises an interesting point, how big will the Jump bubble be? Would a tow cable allow the 400 tons of volume to be jumped without a Jump Net? I am not sure. That's an interesting question.

 

[Condottiere]

Problem with the jump net is that the text states it extends the jump field.

That sort of implies a lanthanum grid.

Because anything caught within the jump bubble during transition is added to total volume, and goes along for the ride.

It's always been an interesting question whether you can use the jump net to repair a broken lanthanum grid, or just drape it over a spaceship, install a jump drive, and let it rip.

 

[PsiTraveller]

I think I would allow it, but head straight to the Traveller Companion to look at Bad Jump effects from the kluge factor of overlapping energy fields.

Not sure if the lanthanum grid is still part of Mongoose Traveller 2ed. Anyone offical reading this thread?

 

[Condottiere]

It's in Tee Five; I suspect an editorial decision was made to simplify starship design by just mentioning jump bubbles.