Docking Clamps and Really Big Pods or Ships

[Terry Mixon]

Someone was looking at my civilian version of the Warmonger Battle Tender (called the Hercules Merchant Tender) and had questions about handling 50,000-ton battle riders or pods. The docking clamps only go up to Type V for 2,001 tons or larger with no upper limit. He wondered why there were not Type VI for 10,001-20,000 tons, and so on. He said it makes no sense to have a clamp from 2,001 tons to infinity. I don't disagree, so I thought I'd throw this out to see what people thought.

 

[MasterGwydion]

Someone was looking at my civilian version of the Warmonger Battle Tender (called the Hercules Merchant Tender) and had questions about handling 50,000-ton battle riders or pods. The docking clamps only go up to Type V for 2,001 tons or larger with no upper limit. He wondered why there were not Type VI for 10,001-20,000 tons, and so on. He said it makes no sense to have a clamp from 2,001 tons to infinity. I don't disagree, so I thought I'd throw this out to see what people thought.

Agreed.

 

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

I added to the table for House Rules:

1. Type V 2,001-10,000 - 50 tons 8MCr
2. Type VI 10,001-50,000 - 100 tons 16MCr
3. Type VII 50,001-250,000 - 500 tons 32MCr
4. Type VIII 250,001+ - 2500 tons 64MCr

 

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

Ship A uses a docking clamp to pick up ship B which has already used a docking clamp to pick up ship C.

Does ship A need a docking clamp for the tonnage of ship B alone or the total mass of B and C?

 

[Terry Mixon]

Ship A uses a docking clamp to pick up ship B which has already used a docking clamp to pick up ship C.

Does ship A need a docking clamp for the tonnage of ship B alone or the total mass of B and C?

Combined mass.

 

[rinku]

It's interesting to compare Docking clamps with breakaway hulls, which more or less provide the same option, saving that breakaway hulls can remain streamlined or partially streamlined with the daughter craft attached or not, and are not able to be targeted separately.

Generally, however, docking clamps are better as they are cheaper and consume less hull space.

 

[Condottiere]

Critical mass of rare earth magnet.

The more interesting question would be, why it's not ripped off from the docker hull.

 

[swordtart]

Or maybe you could use multiple clamps per ship.

This has some scaling issues but they sort of fix themselves. For example it would be more space efficient to use 4 x Type I than a single Type II for a 99 Dton ship, but it would cost twice as much. I can get that there is a minimum cost that doesn't scale so that is fine by me.

The outlier is the Type V as it should be 40 Dtons, but... maths

 

[MasterGwydion]

It's interesting to compare Docking clamps with breakaway hulls, which more or less provide the same option, saving that breakaway hulls can remain streamlined or partially streamlined with the daughter craft attached or not, and are not able to be targeted separately.

Generally, however, docking clamps are better as they are cheaper and consume less hull space.

Except with Breakaway Hulls, they are a ship with a power plant, bridge, and drives. With a docking clamp, it can be a big unpowered trash can.

 

[Condottiere]

Potentially cheap trash can.

 

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

Except with Breakaway Hulls, they are a ship with a power plant, bridge, and drives. With a docking clamp, it can be a big unpowered trash can.

With Breakaway hulls they are built to integrate as a specific combination. With docking clamps it can be any other ship in the right size range. Your free trader blew its J-Drive, any ship with the right size of docking clamp and high enough jump capacity can transport it to where the drive can be replaced. With breakaway hulls that doesn't work.

 

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

Potentially cheap trash can.

Barges. Derelicts. Small space stations. Metal rich asteroid to a smelter.

 

[rinku]

Yes, I wasn't saying clamps and breakaway hulls are the same, but there IS overlap, especially in the battle rider sphere (breakaway hulls do not need to have J-Drives). There's a design choice there between clamps and a ship that splits.

Also overlap for a shuttle or other utility craft that's not stored internally. Because clamps make a ship unstreamlined you might want a subordinate craft that's done as a breakaway hull.

 

[rinku]

 

[Condottiere]

Then, the accountants get involved.

 

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

Also overlap for a shuttle or other utility craft that's not stored internally. Because clamps make a ship unstreamlined you might want a subordinate craft that's done as a breakaway hull.

For those I add an airlock and have them dock airlock to airlock and then the docking clamp takes hold. Otherwise you either need some automation or crew aboard the docked shuttle. The crew can go back and forth and socialize.

Could use a power umbilical rule to allow the ship to power them through jump.

 

[Terry Mixon]

For those I add an airlock and have them dock airlock to airlock and then the docking clamp takes hold. Otherwise you either need some automation or crew aboard the docked shuttle. The crew can go back and forth and socialize.

Could use a power umbilical rule to allow the ship to power them through jump.

I think those are all reasonable.

 

[rinku]

For those I add an airlock and have them dock airlock to airlock and then the docking clamp takes hold. Otherwise you either need some automation or crew aboard the docked shuttle. The crew can go back and forth and socialize.

Could use a power umbilical rule to allow the ship to power them through jump.

Sure. But the combination is unstreamlined. If that never matters, no problem.

If it does matter, in most cases it's better to have a docking space, but if the subordinate craft is large compared to the parent one then using breakaway hulls may be worth looking at. Docking space uses +10% of the smaller craft's tonnage, while a breakaway hull uses 2% of the combined tonnage. As an example, a 300 ton ship with a 100 ton breakaway needs 8 tons and costs MCr 16, while a 400 ton ship with a 100 ton docking bay uses up 110 tons and costs MCr 27.5.

Of course, a docking space is more flexible as far as what craft it can accomodate.

There may be other differences.

As far as it goes for clamped vessels, a dedicated airlock is an excellent idea.

(Edit: And to complete the options, a 100 ton ship would need a Type III clamp on the parent craft, using 10 tons but only costing MCr2.)

 

[Condottiere]

Going by primitive hulls, you need a robust power grid (and umbilicals) to power certain machinery.