Docking Spaces - Inflation or typo?

[phavoc]

Did anyone else catch this in Space Stations? On page 10, where it also talks about docking arms, there's a new description for internal hangars.

Docking Spaces (Supplement 14)
An internal bay in which a smaller ship can bay, this is to a starship what a hangar is to a small craft. Every 3 tons of docking space on a station allows a ton of starship to land inside the station. This space may be divided upon construction or left as one large open space. Cost is MCr .25/ton

Hangars (High Guard)
Hangar: Normally, when a small craft is included in the design of a larger one, it is installed into a form–fitting enclosure in the hull of the mother vessel. The scout’s air/raft, for example, is carried in a small compartment in the forward section, with barely enough room for passengers to scramble on board. Most repairs and maintenance require the air/raft to be launched first.

Adding a full–scale hangar allows for repairs and maintenance of the small craft when they are back on the ship. The hangar includes spare parts and specialized testing and repair equipment for the stored craft.

A hangar requires 30% of the space allocated to the small craft, and costs MCr 0.2/ton.

While on the one hand, stations have space to burn, this does seem a bit excessive. So I did some math and it's a pretty striking difference. Let's use our average Free Trader. It's 200 Dtons.

High Guard
Hangar - 200 Dtons (capacity) requires 260 Dtons (30% extra). Cost is MCr 52

Space Stations
docking space - 200 Dtons (capacity) requires 600 Dtons (3 for 1). Cost is MCr 150

The description does state that a docking space is "this is to a starship what a hangar is to a small craft". So let's say that there is some inflation here... but it's HUGE. CT High Guard says small ships are carried at the 130% listed in MGT High Guard. CT says that ships LARGER than 100 tons are carried at 110% tonnage (So our Free Trader would only need 220 Dtons by CT Book 5.

I checked with GURPS and they went with a 2-1, so our poor kicked around Free Trader would need a 400 ton hangar. Seems to be on the high side as well, but ok.

MegaTraveller kept the same carried ratios from CT.

Thoughts?

 

[sideranautae]

I checked with GURPS and they went with a 2-1, so our poor kicked around Free Trader would need a 400 ton hangar. Seems to be on the high side as well, but ok.

MegaTraveller kept the same carried ratios from CT.

Thoughts?

30% is WAY too little. If you want repair & testing facilities. 2:1 is actually too little but would possibly work. Go aboard a CVN's hanger deck.

 

[phavoc]

30% is WAY too little. If you want repair & testing facilities. 2:1 is actually too little but would possibly work. Go aboard a CVN's hanger deck./quote]

I was thinking more along the lines of a Wasp-class LHD's boat well deck. It can carry 4 LCAC's, and it's more of a straight comparison I think. When the well deck is drained, it's pretty damn roomy, but when it's flooded there isn't much clearance in there.

 

[Matt Wilson]

Yeah, twice the volume doesn't actually go that far.

Say your 200dt trader is a cube. That's what, 2800 cubic meters? I can't remember the conversion, but say it is. So that's just over 14 meters l/w/h. Two times that space is just less than 18 meters per side, so you have a little less than two meters clearance in every direction. You'd barely be able to get out of the ship, let alone do maintenance on it.

 

[sideranautae]

30% is WAY too little. If you want repair & testing facilities. 2:1 is actually too little but would possibly work. Go aboard a CVN's hanger deck./quote]

I was thinking more along the lines of a Wasp-class LHD's boat well deck. It can carry 4 LCAC's, and it's more of a straight comparison I think. When the well deck is drained, it's pretty damn roomy, but when it's flooded there isn't much clearance in there.

Not sure how flooding equates in a space environment. Do they pull the engines on the landing assault craft and rebuild them there?

 

[phavoc]

Yeah, twice the volume doesn't actually go that far.

Say your 200dt trader is a cube. That's what, 2800 cubic meters? I can't remember the conversion, but say it is. So that's just over 14 meters l/w/h. Two times that space is just less than 18 meters per side, so you have a little less than two meters clearance in every direction. You'd barely be able to get out of the ship, let alone do maintenance on it.

That's a good point. Of course we abstract things like that in Traveller down to simple displacement volume. We don't consider things like bearing, weapons placements to offer free fields of fire, etc.

It just seems pretty pricey for empty space. Stations would have space to burn, since they are just drifting.

 

[phavoc]

30% is WAY too little. If you want repair & testing facilities. 2:1 is actually too little but would possibly work. Go aboard a CVN's hanger deck./quote]

I was thinking more along the lines of a Wasp-class LHD's boat well deck. It can carry 4 LCAC's, and it's more of a straight comparison I think. When the well deck is drained, it's pretty damn roomy, but when it's flooded there isn't much clearance in there.

Not sure how flooding equates in a space environment. Do they pull the engines on the landing assault craft and rebuild them there?

The craft in the well deck ride higher with water inside, and then gain overhead space when the water is drained (more for the LCAC since it's air cushioned). Fully drained there is plenty of room for a crane to lift off engines. Aircraft engines though are pulled straight back, like they are in a slot. Even the folded wings don't go much further up than the tails.

 

[sideranautae]

Not sure how flooding equates in a space environment. Do they pull the engines on the landing assault craft and rebuild them there?

The craft in the well deck ride higher with water inside, and then gain overhead space when the water is drained (more for the LCAC since it's air cushioned). Fully drained there is plenty of room for a crane to lift off engines. Aircraft engines though are pulled straight back, like they are in a slot. Even the folded wings don't go much further up than the tails.

Sounds interesting. Must be something to see those things launch!

 

[AndrewW]

It's correct.

The High Guard version can be more form fitting. For the station docking spaces though, needs to be generic to fit a variety of craft in the same space.

Actually, the original figure was 2x, but it was found that didn't really work just taking examples of some of the existing designs of the same size, a generic bay that would fit one type of 200 ton small craft wouldn't fit another type of 100 ton small craft at only 2x, so it was upped to 3x.

 

[dragoner]

It could be just cradle space on another ship, while on a space station it is a full hangar.