Drop Tanks... Back From the Dead?

[Sigtrygg]

I didn't do the math, but the claim is that making a 160dton ship with 40dtons of drop tanks is cheaper than making a 200dton ship. Didn't interest me enough to double check the assertion, just saying if its true, it's stupid.

This assumes you fly around and never actually drop the tanks, I gather.

Ok that I understand. Thanks.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Would make more sense to have a 200-ton ship with 0 tons of internal jump fuel. You carry like an extra 39 tons of cargo per jump. Attach the drop tanks at the jump point. Suck the fuel, drop the tanks, and jump. A tug takes the drop tanks back to the starport, if they survived.

If they survived than you have a universe where jump fueling stations and oilers become possible and you have changed the setting. To preserve the setting the drop tanks must be destroyed every time they are used.

 

[Sigtrygg]

The RAW is a lot of verbiage and mechanics to say "Drop tanks are ineffective, unsafe, and functionally unusable." Which is fine with me because I don't like them or the implications of them.

However, the rules making drop tanks so ineffective does directly contradict the old canon (JTAS #2: TNS reports) that they have been in commercial use in the Core for over a decade and are making long haul commercial service viable. The RAW mechanics absolutely do not allow for that.

They were trying to have a conversation about what if they actually did work. We all know that they don't, so obviously the discussion is going to have to be assuming a house rule that the "more likely destroyed than not" rule doesn't apply.

But the core rule book is not necessarily the rules that apply in the Third Imperium setting...

The TAS News articles are setting specific, the Gazelle is setting specific.

 

[Condottiere]

In a way, if you have starships without the means to self jump, it's basically a stargate.

Whether the stargate takes the form of drop tanks, or underway replenishment with a very long hose.

 

[Vormaerin]

But the core rule book is not necessarily the rules that apply in the Third Imperium setting...

The TAS News articles are setting specific, the Gazelle is setting specific.

I know that. They were having a moderately interesting discussion of "what if" but someone decided that it was super important to stomp that out with quotes of rules everyone already knows and deliberately set aside pages ago.

 

[MasterGwydion]

If they survived than you have a universe where jump fueling stations and oilers become possible and you have changed the setting. To preserve the setting the drop tanks must be destroyed every time they are used.

Yeah, but they aren't, so about 40-some % of the time it works as advertised. Not like it is a big surprise that Traveller blew up their own setting because they weren't smart enough, or didn't care enough to do proper quality control, to see how their decisions affected the entirety of Chart Space.

 

[CordwainerFish]

However, the rules making drop tanks so ineffective does directly contradict the old canon (JTAS #2: TNS reports) that they have been in commercial use in the Core for over a decade and are making long haul commercial service viable.

On the fly head canon: Tukera Lines and General Shipyards know drop tanks are the new Ford Pinto, but have inserted false stories in the Behind the Claw edition of TNS stating that they work just fine, pay no attention to the Hiver behind the curtain.

 

[boggo2300]

On the fly head canon: Tukera Lines and General Shipyards know drop tanks are the new Ford Pinto, but have inserted false stories in the Behind the Claw edition of TNS stating that they work just fine, pay no attention to the Hiver behind the curtain.

ALWAYS pay attention to the Hiver behind the curtain, just don't believe anything it says!

 

[MasterGwydion]

Hmmm... Drop tanks... Good for building fuel caches in deepspace.

Use @Terry Mixon 1 million-ton merchant vessel for the example. Think of that, but replace all the pods with fuel to be delivered to a jump bridge or some such place. Then calculate what size jump drive and drop tank you would need to move the whole thing, minus the drop tanks, obviously. Use the fuel from the drop tanks for the initial jump to the jump bridge. Pump the fuel from your pods into the tanks on the jump bridge. Have a large enough internal jump fuel tank to jump back out of the rift sans drop tank but with the empty fuel pods.

Is this a workable idea @Terry Mixon @Arkathan ?

 

[Terry Mixon]

Hmmm... Drop tanks... Good for building fuel caches in deepspace.

Use @Terry Mixon 1 million-ton merchant vessel for the example. Think of that, but replace all the pods with fuel to be delivered to a jump bridge or some such place. Then calculate what size jump drive and drop tank you would need to move the whole thing, minus the drop tanks, obviously. Use the fuel from the drop tanks for the initial jump to the jump bridge. Pump the fuel from your pods into the tanks on the jump bridge. Have a large enough internal jump fuel tank to jump back out of the rift sans drop tank but with the empty fuel pods.

Is this a workable idea @Terry Mixon @Arkathan ?

I’d have to run the numbers, but I’d expect it to fall short of fuel.

 

[MasterGwydion]

I’d have to run the numbers, but I’d expect it to fall short of fuel.

Yeah, just a random idea had had. Kind of an edge case where drop tanks may be actually useful even if half of them get destroyed each time. Getting fuel to jump bridges is a real pain in the behind!

 

[rinku]

It just occurred to me that a ship that saves money by having its jump fuel on the outside, and thus should only operate in safe areas, is going to be more expensive than a ship that keeps its fuel on the inside but puts the cargo on the outside on Cr1000 per ton external cargo mounts.

I mean, you could do BOTH, I guess.

Oh look. A Reformation Coalition Clipper!

But the simplest and cheapest way to make an unstreamlined ship is just to have a distributed hull from the start. None of these other complicated options appear to be better.

 

[Terry Mixon]

Yeah, just a random idea had had. Kind of an edge case where drop tanks may be actually useful even if half of them get destroyed each time. Getting fuel to jump bridges is a real pain in the behind!

If one of my J4 Hercules jumps 2 parsecs, it could drop off 838,710 tons of fuel in pods and have enough fuel on board to get back to their origin point. Getting that fuel out there takes the 680,000 tons of fuel. They could create fuel dumps that way.

EDIT: Acfually, it would be different once the fuel pods were dropped. Or even a partial load. I’d have to actually mess with the sheet to be sure. But the ship is made to jump 4 with 900,000 tons of pods. It might be able to J4 out and only take some of the fuel to get back, leaving a good amount.

Edit2: 360,000 tons to J4 back, leaving 478,710 fuel behind.

 

[Condottiere]

Depends.

Usually on some apparently evolutionary dead end in ship building, added in an obscure corner in a supplement.

 

[Terry Mixon]

@MasterGwydion, look back at my last post. I have the numbers for you.

 

[MasterGwydion]

If one of my J4 Hercules jumps 2 parsecs, it could drop off 838,710 tons of fuel in pods and have enough fuel on board to get back to their origin point. Getting that fuel out there takes the 680,000 tons of fuel. They could create fuel dumps that way.

EDIT: Acfually, it would be different once the fuel pods were dropped. Or even a partial load. I’d have to actually mess with the sheet to be sure. But the ship is made to jump 4 with 900,000 tons of pods. It might be able to J4 out and only take some of the fuel to get back, leaving a good amount.

Edit2: 360,000 tons to J4 back, leaving 478,710 fuel behind.

Why are you leaving less fuel behind on Edit 2? Should be the same amount. The drop tanks should be in addition to the base ship. If the base ship is 1 million tons, then the ship with the J-4 drop tanks should be about 1.4 million tons or so. Unless I am misunderstanding how you are doing it...

 

[Terry Mixon]

Why are you leaving less fuel behind on Edit 2? Should be the same amount. The drop tanks should be in addition to the base ship. If the base ship is 1 million tons, then the ship with the J-4 drop tanks should be about 1.4 million tons or so. Unless I am misunderstanding how you are doing it...

It’s a pod tender. 1,000,000 tons of ship that jumps out with 900,000 in extra pods with its overpowered drives. Once the pods are dropped there, it is 900,000 tons lighter, so that is why the jump back uses less fuel. The 360,000 for the jump back comes from the original amount brought.

 

[MasterGwydion]

It’s a pod tender. 1,000,000 tons of ship that jumps out with 900,000 in extra pods with its overpowered drives. Once the pods are dropped there, it is 900,000 tons lighter, so that is why the jump back uses less fuel. The 360,000 for the jump back comes from the original amount brought.

Ahhh.... So, the drop tanks would have to be something like 760,000 tons?

 

[Terry Mixon]

Ahhh.... So, the drop tanks would have to be something like 760,000 tons?

This ship doesn’t use drop tanks. The 680,000 tons is all internal. The 1,000,000 ton tender carries an additional 900,000 tons of external pods and the engines are made to jump 4 with 1,900,000 tons of load.

Once it has jumped out and dropped the 900,000 tons of pods it can draw out 360,000 tons of fuel to jump 4 back with its overpowered engines but no load. That leaves 478,710 tons of fuel behind. No drop tanks. All on its own.

 

[MasterGwydion]

This ship doesn’t use drop tanks. The 680,000 tons is all internal. The 1,000,000 ton tender carries an additional 900,000 tons of external pods and the engines are made to jump 4 with 1,900,000 tons of load.

Once it has jumped out and dropped the 900,000 tons of pods it can draw out 360,000 tons of fuel to jump 4 back with its overpowered engines but no load. That leaves 478,710 tons of fuel behind. No drop tanks. All on its own.

I was just wondering what would happen if you used drop tanks for the first jump and jump out J4 on all internal fuel. How does that affect your numbers?

Edit - Would that get you 900,000 tons of fuel delivered to the jump bridge per trip?