Efficient space only freighter design
- Thread starter phavoc
- Start date
While I think there is nothing wrong with external stored cargo, the costs would be high. Perhaps too high to justify it using modern cargo moving standards (making the container itself cheap so that you can move it around). Ships will get cargoes to the port, but that cargo still has to go to warehousing to be unloaded. Best case it's loaded fully at the origin and unloaded fully at it's destination - but so much cargo will get unloaded and reloaded.
Which, in my mind at least, still makes carrying the cargo internally as the most efficient way. Internal cargo means you ship will be able to transport the cheaper containers in bulk without investing lots of extra credits in just the container itself.
And the original question was how to make a freighter that's not going to land to be able to load and unload it's cargo. I'm thinking that to be able to do that quickly you'd need the ability to gain access to containers without having to unload all the others. A rotary design seems to make sense (though the area it would require to do so is a potential drawback). Longer ships that you can stuff from back to front also can be efficient, but for partial loads or ships that have routes and don't unload all their cargo at each stop, it's not so efficient. Limited internal space and limited dock space make for difficult cargo movement.
Thus far it's been an interesting conversation and thanks to everyone for contributing.
Which, in my mind at least, still makes carrying the cargo internally as the most efficient way. Internal cargo means you ship will be able to transport the cheaper containers in bulk without investing lots of extra credits in just the container itself.
And the original question was how to make a freighter that's not going to land to be able to load and unload it's cargo. I'm thinking that to be able to do that quickly you'd need the ability to gain access to containers without having to unload all the others. A rotary design seems to make sense (though the area it would require to do so is a potential drawback). Longer ships that you can stuff from back to front also can be efficient, but for partial loads or ships that have routes and don't unload all their cargo at each stop, it's not so efficient. Limited internal space and limited dock space make for difficult cargo movement.
Thus far it's been an interesting conversation and thanks to everyone for contributing.
So, if we go with a rotary style ststem, on large freighters, i think id want to design it so that you spend the week in jump rearranging the cargo for your next stop.
My hope is that by designing it to use that time, we should be able to get the minimum amount of extra space required to do the shifting.
My hope is that by designing it to use that time, we should be able to get the minimum amount of extra space required to do the shifting.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Last In First Out.
Geir
Emperor Mongoose
That does bring up an interesting point. The freight rules don't explicitly state that you can load freight for anything beyond your next jump and in that case, it doesn't matter. It brings up some interesting pricing dynamics.
But for speculative trade, you won't necessarily know when it will be best to sell your cargo - you can bet, but if the price sucks, you might not want to unload - if you have cargo doors on both sides, like an Empress Marva, you could always pick which door to load and unload from.
Maybe every cargo crane comes with a built-in copy of Tetris.
I'd think that this would be unnecessary. You'd be able to pick any of your cargo loads at any time for unloading (i.e. no single load would block another).
If you are doing speculative trade you are probably going to be a relatively small merchant, so while annoying if your cargo is in the back, the amount you'd have to unload should be small (assuming your super cargo is on the ball and your speculation isn't a big surprise).
Anstett
Emperor Mongoose
From the Cargo Loading rates thread:
Cargo Loading rates?
We recently ran into a scenario where it was important to know how long it took for a speculative cargo lot to arrive and then how long it took to load the cargo onto the ship. I could not find anything that discusses this. Does anyone know if/where something like this is addressed? The only...
forum.mongoosepublishing.com
For a Type A Starport:
Loading times of five minutes per ton are the norm – though specially equipped industrial hangers can reduce this to one minute per ton.
That should work especially on the big routes for LIFO.
I wonder if just making the entire cargo deck open like a gull wing door would avoid needing things on the outside and keep the ease of loading unloading both at dock and in open space.
So my concept is to have both a 10k dton and a 100k dton freighter as standard. Jump 2, designed to go from one billion+ pop world to another, with stops at all million+ pop worlds in between that have at least class B starports.
The idea is to maximize their cargo hold space. However, because of the small stops, we can assume that some stops are only unloading say 500 tons. 500 tons at 5 minutes per ton, is still 40 hours. Thats more than a day, call it 3 days if they load the same amount.
If i have to unload another 500 tons (loaded from the previous small world) first in order to get at the 500 tons i actually want, and then load it back afterwards, thats now 6 days.
So ideally i want a system that allows moving that freshly loaded 500 tons around before i get to the next world.
@phavoc:
While i agree with you, my point is that any free space for a rotary system requires tonnage. I want to minimize that tonnage. Therefore, i dont want the fastest rotary system possible, since the faster it is, the more tonnage it will require. I want to design it to be as slow as possible, while still moving the cargo in the 7 days of jump space.
For instance, if my 10k design had 500 spare dtons, then after leaving the first small world, the crew could just shift the newly loaded 500 dtons into the spare space, then move the 500 dtons designated for the next world to the front, then move the 500 dtons in the spare space into the newly freed up space.
Obviously thats not a well designed rotary system, im using it for example purposes.
However, it would only take the crew 3 days to do that. So i can make the space smaller (say only 250 dtons of free space), requiring more trips moving cargo around (doubling the amount of time needed to jenga everything into the correct position, so 6 days), but jump space is 7 days anyway, so i havent lost any practical effeciency, and ive saved 250 dtons of cargo space.
Thats what i mean - i want to design the system to require the crew to work the entire time theyre in jump space, in order to save as much cargo space as possible, so that whenever they arrive at a world, its already ready for 'unload the front, then fill 'er up'.
Re: 1 minute per ton industrial hangars: that still wouldnt be fast enough for 100k dton freighters if you have to move things out of the way before you can unload the actual cargo for a given world. Even if theres only 1000 tons of stuff in the way, thats still 30 hours just moving things that dont belong on that world.
The idea is to maximize their cargo hold space. However, because of the small stops, we can assume that some stops are only unloading say 500 tons. 500 tons at 5 minutes per ton, is still 40 hours. Thats more than a day, call it 3 days if they load the same amount.
If i have to unload another 500 tons (loaded from the previous small world) first in order to get at the 500 tons i actually want, and then load it back afterwards, thats now 6 days.
So ideally i want a system that allows moving that freshly loaded 500 tons around before i get to the next world.
@phavoc:
While i agree with you, my point is that any free space for a rotary system requires tonnage. I want to minimize that tonnage. Therefore, i dont want the fastest rotary system possible, since the faster it is, the more tonnage it will require. I want to design it to be as slow as possible, while still moving the cargo in the 7 days of jump space.
For instance, if my 10k design had 500 spare dtons, then after leaving the first small world, the crew could just shift the newly loaded 500 dtons into the spare space, then move the 500 dtons designated for the next world to the front, then move the 500 dtons in the spare space into the newly freed up space.
Obviously thats not a well designed rotary system, im using it for example purposes.
However, it would only take the crew 3 days to do that. So i can make the space smaller (say only 250 dtons of free space), requiring more trips moving cargo around (doubling the amount of time needed to jenga everything into the correct position, so 6 days), but jump space is 7 days anyway, so i havent lost any practical effeciency, and ive saved 250 dtons of cargo space.
Thats what i mean - i want to design the system to require the crew to work the entire time theyre in jump space, in order to save as much cargo space as possible, so that whenever they arrive at a world, its already ready for 'unload the front, then fill 'er up'.
Re: 1 minute per ton industrial hangars: that still wouldnt be fast enough for 100k dton freighters if you have to move things out of the way before you can unload the actual cargo for a given world. Even if theres only 1000 tons of stuff in the way, thats still 30 hours just moving things that dont belong on that world.
Geir
Emperor Mongoose
UNREP gets you 20 tons per hour per ton of UNREP. It's supposed to be ship to ship, but what is a warehouse but a ship that... doesn't float... or move. Well, anyway, the principle should hold. If you have a giant freighter and put a 30 ton dedicated cargo-moving UNREP system on it, you can move 10 tons per minute.
Geir
Emperor Mongoose
Then you're back to Tetris. Or that old game with blocks. But if you have no blocks free, then well, I like the gullwing idea, but it won't get the load out of the middle, unless the top decks are cargo and a pop-up crane picks boxes and moves them around.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
For large ships, probably crane, rail, and corridors to move around containers.
Right, thats what we were discissing. Which is why some people were exploring lashing it to the outside, and making it space worthy, under the theory, you wouldnt need to lose that tetris tonnage. Thus the discussion about the expense of making it spaceworthy, since that would be the trade off for saving space.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Externally, you probably have to pay for hull plated containers, and they're likely to be large; whether there's a standard, or not, or how large they'll be, undetermined, though I think a kilotonne was the original size.
Internally, steel, which is cheap, manufactured six tonne container might be a thousand starbux.
Internally, steel, which is cheap, manufactured six tonne container might be a thousand starbux.
MasterGwydion
Emperor Mongoose
UNREP is hands-down the best way to go. Nothing else even comes close.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Gullwing doors would make for faster access, and in a 3-d environment you'd be able to put access on all sides. The limitation there is in a vacuum you'd have to make every load sealed against vacuum as well (depending on cargo) zero-g. So that gets us back to either space-worthy containers or else something down the middle. I had done some container write-ups before and come up with a one-time lining for a container to maintain vacuum integrity - opening it up would rip the seal. But I figured that was a relatively cheap way to use a standard container not meant for vacuum in a vacuum environment. That would offer you more way to access your load as long as the loads would accept that limitation.
Moving cargo around in-transit is possible - but also means you'd have to either have the space available (i.e. not running fully loaded) or else you leave the space available at all times to do that. Then if you used some sort of overhead system and played the tetris game in-transit you'd be able to move cargo around while in jump. You'd have to figure out your ship design to determine just how much wastage space would need to be reserved to do it. Assuming your loading/moving machinery was capable of it, your super-cargo could just program in the parameters and let the system do all the grunt work. Even if it took 3-5 days to do so you'd have more than enough time while in jump. There'd be additional wear and tear (i.e. maintenance costs that every merchant hates). Game-wise it's covered, but merchants skimp on maintenance as much as they can as it's credits not going into their pockets. That's been a truism since merchants were first created.
I'd think the UNREP system wouldn't work - mostly because that's not what its meant for. Yah, you can move stuff, but it's really meant to move from Ship A to Ship B - and not vice-versa. If you look at UNREP systems today you'll see that in every case the loading of ship A (the origin of the supplies) doesn't use UNREP to load itself. And the amounts moved while underway (excluding pumped fuel) are not huge. Ships don't resupply large quantities of anything other than fuel (Sacramento class AOE were replaced by Supply class... terrible name for the class if you ask me!). In space you don't have the same challenges you do with weather and waves, so I'd think it'd be more of extensible bridges from the supply ship to the receiving ship, and then just float/roll the pallets of equipment. Warships would not be loading 10Dton sized containers, but rather 1/2/3 dtons or even palletized cargo in 1/2dton increments. They are warships after all, not cargo ships. Plus I don't recall ever having seen a deckplan with the idea of placing cargo bays and reloading areas where you'd actually expect to see them to facillitate it. Real naval vessels don't do it either aside from the locations where you attach your fuel and lines for winching the loads across.
Again, most of this has nothing to do with the game. It's just providing background with an eye towards the details. Probably gonna be lots of handwavium and moving on the pew-pew or the talky-talky part that most games are all about.
Moving cargo around in-transit is possible - but also means you'd have to either have the space available (i.e. not running fully loaded) or else you leave the space available at all times to do that. Then if you used some sort of overhead system and played the tetris game in-transit you'd be able to move cargo around while in jump. You'd have to figure out your ship design to determine just how much wastage space would need to be reserved to do it. Assuming your loading/moving machinery was capable of it, your super-cargo could just program in the parameters and let the system do all the grunt work. Even if it took 3-5 days to do so you'd have more than enough time while in jump. There'd be additional wear and tear (i.e. maintenance costs that every merchant hates). Game-wise it's covered, but merchants skimp on maintenance as much as they can as it's credits not going into their pockets. That's been a truism since merchants were first created.
I'd think the UNREP system wouldn't work - mostly because that's not what its meant for. Yah, you can move stuff, but it's really meant to move from Ship A to Ship B - and not vice-versa. If you look at UNREP systems today you'll see that in every case the loading of ship A (the origin of the supplies) doesn't use UNREP to load itself. And the amounts moved while underway (excluding pumped fuel) are not huge. Ships don't resupply large quantities of anything other than fuel (Sacramento class AOE were replaced by Supply class... terrible name for the class if you ask me!). In space you don't have the same challenges you do with weather and waves, so I'd think it'd be more of extensible bridges from the supply ship to the receiving ship, and then just float/roll the pallets of equipment. Warships would not be loading 10Dton sized containers, but rather 1/2/3 dtons or even palletized cargo in 1/2dton increments. They are warships after all, not cargo ships. Plus I don't recall ever having seen a deckplan with the idea of placing cargo bays and reloading areas where you'd actually expect to see them to facillitate it. Real naval vessels don't do it either aside from the locations where you attach your fuel and lines for winching the loads across.
Again, most of this has nothing to do with the game. It's just providing background with an eye towards the details. Probably gonna be lots of handwavium and moving on the pew-pew or the talky-talky part that most games are all about.
Another option.. detachable 'hulls' for each portion of cargo hold. Costs 1% of your cargo tonnage for the attachment gear, but then when you reach a atarport, each piece detaches and unloads/loads seperately as if they were independant ships.
Thats way too high a cost of course but it gives an alternate
Thats way too high a cost of course but it gives an alternate
