It is possible to build a smallcraft that is, and can be carried as, a standard cargo container. We dropped the writeup of this from Starship Operator's Manual as it seemed an unusual case, but consider an 8 ton 4A92/F equipped with a small power plant, fuel tank, m-drive, and biosphere, so its occupant need not leave the container during the entire trip.
Efficient space only freighter design
- Thread starter phavoc
- Start date
Something like https://wiki.travellerrpg.com/Revolver_class_Modular_Liner ? Though that design fills in the empty spaces in the interests of compactness.
Sort of. I'm not graphically gifted to really illustrate what I'm saying. Most Cargo containers are all about being square, and while the revolver idea is circular in nature, I'd expect a LOT of 90 angles to maximize storage space - basically like we see today. For some cargos a tubular design is most efficient, though if you wanted standardization you'd see the tubular design in a square (or rectangular) frame so that it would fit in a standard rectangular position like all other cargo containers.
For a passenger liner you may see some curves for aesthetics (or perhaps it's a racial trait and the race just hates edges), but from an efficiency standpoint ugly and slab-sided just tickles the credit-scrimping merchant.
Thanks for the share!
If you are staying in a vacuum then a square or rectangle-shaped small craft is entirely reasonable. Though I'd think most small craft would be used as an interface to some location you could not take your ship, thus they'd be designed to work equally well in vacuum as atmosphere. At least that's how I'd see it.
The idea of the "optimal" size of containers is going to be constrained by the environment in which they operate in. And by that I mean you have to think of the entire ecosystem in which the container will be used. Bigger is sometimes better, but there is the idea of too big as well. Containers have to go (ultimately) from Point A all the way to Point Z. To do so they will take a trip on a (grav) truck to some location where they (may) be transloaded onto another conveyance to be taken to the local port. From there they may be loaded directly on to a smaller cargo ship that can land, or they may be load on a sub-craft or cargo lighter and taken to orbit where they may be loaded directly on a ship, unloaded at a station or perhaps even loaded into a larger container which is then attached/loaded on to a larger ship. From there they have to make their way to their ultimate destination.An interesting thread which I seem to have spent far too much time thinking about
Whilst I like Geir's idea of the 5 and 10dT containers as they match the trade and spec lots, I prefer J.L. Brown's 4, 6 and 8dT for a couple of reasons.
The first is that they are close to the 20, 30 and 40 footers we have today.
The second is the mostly aesthetic. I like the idea of taking a 3x3x3 cube and doubling it's length to get a 4dT container, then doubling that length to get an 8dT. You can create "sticks" of containers clamped together which follow the same ratios (and also allow access to both ends of each container without having to break anything apart). For example a 4x2 stick of 6m containers follows the 1x1x2 ratios of the 6m container. (This is 32dT so with a bit of handwaving I'd say a modular cutter could move this stick instead of the standard 30dT cutter module). Making an 8x2 64dT stick follows the ratios of the 12m container (1x1x4).
Using 12m containers gives you a 32-box stick (8x4 256dT) or 64-box stick (16x4 512dT).
If you're OK with only being ale to access one end of each container then blocks of 2x2x2 could be use as the basis of the sticks, which then gets into serious tonnages being moved.
Once you're at that level it might be better to use larger 6x6x12m containers (32dT) and 6x6x24m (64dT) which could be built into similar sticks:
12m containers; 4x2 stick = 256dT. 8x2 stick = 512dT
24m containers; 8x4 stick = 2048dT. 16x4 stick = 4098dT
Basically I like the idea of sticks of containers following the same ratios as the containers themselves, and also being able to access each container when it's not aboard ship.
So what would be the "optimal" size? Beats the hell out of me! I haven't seen the 52nd century transportation network to tell you what standard(s) are there that have been settled on to work best. If you scale up from today's tech (and look at the evolution of our own containers) you'll see that the largest (53' in the US) are at the edge of where they can operate on the infrastructure that exists for them to move on. Kind of like how railroads in many countries determined the distance between 2 tracks (gauge), it can be traced all the way back to Roman times and the width required for a war chariot. Standards are quirky things and because once you establish them they are a bitch to change - and for good reason.
We've seen the mega container freighters and tankers evolve over time - and the benefits and drawbacks to them. I'm guessing that the future will use somewhat similar logic and come to a reasonable size for moving cargo and as we've all read in the literature, the Imperium LIKES standards across its width and breadth. Whether it be 4/8dt or 5/10dt is arguable - hence we are doing just that. And politely!
It's a couple of things that all came together over a long period to make it so. In the early days of railroads, freight cars had some differences as far as length went. But eventually the (US at least) standardized on the 40' boxcar as a defacto standard. It made it easy for builders to build for any railroad, and for the early days of freight interchange, the standards meant that any car could go anywhere (not to mention how it made it possible for neutral 3rd party builders to build and sell products to any railroad). You saw this length get standardized for all cars - with the exception of very specialized ones. When diesel trucks became a thing, and trailers on railroads was implemented, the standard flat bed car could take a 32' trailer without issue.
Over time trucks become more capable, and merchants wanted more cargo in the same trailer since it was still one driver. Efficiency. Later train cars went through the same evolution as bigger cars were desired and locomotive tech got better as well. As trailers get longer, you need longer flatbeds (the invention of the 80' flatbed that could hold 2 trailers). Then containers came along and all kinds of other changes were implemented to adapt, and continued to change to accommodate those changes.
That drives the container size and part of the standard. A container today is still relatively cheap from the factory - but it's not free. And it still must conform to certain standards in order to handle it's cargo's, take the abuse in transit/loading that occurs, as well as let it get stacked upon one another. You can buy cheaper ones, but you can't stack those as well - and they don't hold up to ocean-going transit. How cheap they are going to get in the 52nd century is, well, anyone's guess. Even with cheap fusion energy and nearly unlimited raw materials that come with access to other planets and asteroid belts, there's no reason to believe that prices or miracle materials will reduce prices to below how (relatively) cheap they are today. A laser rifle is Cr5,000 (avg). An auto-rifle is Cr750 - While we don't have laser rifles today we do have auto-rifles. And you can pick up a cheap one for $400, or a military one for about $800. So those prices are roughly equivalent, thus it seems fair to assume that a containers cost will also be, roughly, equivalent in the future as it is today. That price fluctuates like all things - higher demand means higher prices, lower demand means lower prices. Buying one in the US is probably going to cost you more than buying one in China - though the average price of iron ore is (again) roughly equivalent between the two nations since it's set at market prices. TL
R - pricing for other items doesn't reflect the future is magically cheaper.Putting gravitics in the average container is simply cost prohibitive. These things would be built literally at every planet, and they all need to share the same basic characteristics since we are talking about an Imperial-wide supply chain. They need to be cheap, they need to be relatively secure and stand up to many uses. MAYBE some TL12 material comes along that's cheaper than steel, but it needs a higher TL to build it. These things will be built at TL8 worlds, filled with goods and transported to TLX worlds. Unless it's damaged, someone is going to refill it and send it along someplace else - maybe onplanet, maybe off. Bottom line is that this container will continue it's lifespan so long as it can be used because it's already been paid for. So unless your loads require that gravitic floor plating there is simply no rational cost model in which you'd equip a container as a norm with them. Supply chain management is merciless for squeezing every dollar/credit out of the process to lower costs and increase profits. The Imperium is driven by capitalism, standards and efficiency. With so many other items within the game reflecting similar real-world prices there just isn't a good argument to justify it any other way.
Handwavium and IMTU are two standard reasons to do so, but if we avoid those two things it's just not going to happen without some major other changes across the board (matter replicators and nearly unlimited energy - aka Star Trek would alter the discussion)
J. L. Brown
Emperor Mongoose
Wow, you had me agreeing at every point -- but then you said this:
The discussion started at very large freighters which operate only in space; which do runs from high-port to high-port. All of these are built using the rules for starships & space stations -- and the default assumption (especially at & above TL 10) is that all of these things already have gravitic deck-plates. Which means that they can turn their on-board gravity on and off; and they can (for belly-lander ship designs) create the equivalent of up to 1G (or more) of acceleration to negate the felt-force of a maneuver drive.
There is no reason whatsoever for cargo to ever (in a ship or high-port) have weight (it will still have mass) if that makes it inconvenient to handle.
And.... there is the disconnect. I am not talking about putting gravitics in every container.
The discussion started at very large freighters which operate only in space; which do runs from high-port to high-port. All of these are built using the rules for starships & space stations -- and the default assumption (especially at & above TL 10) is that all of these things already have gravitic deck-plates. Which means that they can turn their on-board gravity on and off; and they can (for belly-lander ship designs) create the equivalent of up to 1G (or more) of acceleration to negate the felt-force of a maneuver drive.
There is no reason whatsoever for cargo to ever (in a ship or high-port) have weight (it will still have mass) if that makes it inconvenient to handle.
Ah. Well, I think by default design the deckplates of ships will have built-in gravitics. So that can be set aside.
There is, I believe, a very good reason why cargo decks will always have gravity - and that's because your average container load will most likely be palletized, and while there are processes you can do in order to secure your loads, if you keep the cargo in gravity it's a lot easier to deal with. At least that was my experience loading and unloading trucks in our reality today. Granted I didn't ship any loads to orbit, so I can only really speak to terrestrial needs. It's fine to use devices or other things to shift the container itself, but I don't believe you'd want that anti-gravity aspect to extend inside of the container.
And if your cargo is needing refrigeration or freezing (via equipment in the container) you have to pack it in specific ways to ensure all parts of the cargo are cooled and/or frozen continuously and in the proper fashion.
J. L. Brown
Emperor Mongoose
The freighter and the high-port always operate in 0G conditions, and stuff happens. It is inevitable that cargo will sometimes be (perhaps inadvertently) exposed to 0G, and so there are two ways to deal with it: 1} Accept that accidents happen, and take the losses; buy better insurance, or 2} find methods to pack cargo so that 0G (or varying gravity) exposure does not damage it.
As a multi-trillion credit cargo-insurance company, I know which solution I would lobby to have implemented, and it is not the one that involves paying out a bunch of claims.
But it is not just insurers who benefit from properly packing cargo; making certain that cargo in containers will not shift or become otherwise hazardous when the gravity flickers or does something 'a bit odd' means less risk to the cargo ship -- and it also allows the cargo to be moved super-efficiently (load or unload the entire cargo hold in less than a minute, as opposed to 5 minutes per dTon) with no added expense for extra equipment for the sole purpose of moving the cargo. As a multi-trillion credit big-fish player in the cargo moving business, I know which solution I would make company policy and part of standard operations.
As a cargo-hand working in the star-trade business, following procedure might be a bit of a pain -- but it is an absolute fact of life, because there are a thousand official procedures covering every aspect of the ships' operations. So if procedure says that I have to stow cargo in a new way that I don't like, it is either 1} learn to follow the new cargo-stowage procedure, or 2} seek new employment when discovered cutting corners by officers of the ship, inspectors from the traffic regulators, agents from the buyer / seller / insurer of the cargo, or fellow crew who are pissed that cutting corners has put them in a potential tight spot.
You can run your TU any way you see fit, and that's great. Tramp freighters and similar small-fish in the cargo business may have all sorts of wild-west ways (if they even handle containerized cargo), and that is fine. But to my mind, it is the big cargo lines and similar entities with a lot of influence who establish the standards for how big-bulk cargo is handled -- and defining 'this is how cargo must be packed and secured inside a container' is an absolutely trivial effort with potentially huge payoff, and it seems completely obvious that it would be done.
I do not disagree with you at all. Having that flexibility is great - but it's not without other costs. Making a container that is both vacuum-proof and very resistant to the temperature changes that space provides is not going to be cheap. So that means containers meant for exposure in zero-G vacuum conditions are going to be much more expensive and someone will have to pay for all that expense when so much cargo will never leave atmosphere - but still needs the exact same container.
From a pure supply-chain process, I'm thinking that most of these cargos are going to never get exposed to vacuum or zero-G. But in order to do that your freighter design will have to be such that it's loading/unloading processes are done under G and within an atmospheric environment. And that entails other design compromises to make that work -and work well and cheap.
For dropping off a standard non-space worthy container you can either do it directly with the ship itself docking to a platform/station/orbital warehouse (or even another ship), or else you drop off a LASH-like container filled with sub-cargo and pick up new ones. Those are loaded/unloaded in the atmospheric environment and provide it for their cargos as well.
One can do a LOT of things to secure your cargo against zero-G shifting - but it would take more time and cost you more in labor to do so. Shrink wrapping your cargo on your pallet will help secure it from drifting. Using cargo nets to strap the pallet to the desk will mean it won't drift away. Using smaller full containers for small items that can drift (think evenlopes, small packages) in a larger one will also work. While I haven't done it for zero-g environment, I've done all the rest for loading aboard trucks and aircraft. It's not hard, but you do have extra work to do in order to make it all happen. And when people didn't do it right, well, then you had your insurance claims - and my company (UPS) paid plenty as a cost of doing business.
We didn't have to worry about the other temperature conditions like you do in space (somewhere around a 400 degree Fahrenheit temperature swing going from sun to shadow. So our trailers were standard OTR ones (the air containers were half aluminum for structure and the rest was either hard plastic or see-through plastic just to contain things). Ocean containers (they are the ripple-sided ones) are much stronger and can take more, but all will eventually will have temp fluctuations depending on outside environment (even OTR trailers that have been sitting in the yard all day with their metal sides and roof become ovens in the summer - ugh). Space is going to be far more extreme and many items can be damaged with exposure or fluctuations of that type.
TL;DR - just means you won't be able to do that unless your container is much more expensive - and the goal here is to keep your overall material costs down as well as your handling costs. Choices have to be made and all the debates are which paths would make the most sense. It's a game and most people could give three tosses about all this. For me I like to have game models that closely resemble reality because it makes it easier to understand, easier to figure out how it works, and easier to respond when enterprising players think of things I didn't and now I have to make a ruling (as close to fair as I can). I don't know about most, but many times I thought I was clever in an adventure design only to have someone mention something out of left field that was perfectly reasonable IF you clever enough to come up with it in the first place. I dislike handwavium as a norm and prefer not to fall back on it because I was/am being lazy. Hence all this.
J. L. Brown
Emperor Mongoose
Why do you keep adding requirements that I did not specify? There is no reason for a container which is shipped inside a space-only freighter, and delivered into the cargo-handling dock of a high-port, to be built to withstand floating around in orbit for weeks on end. But there IS a plethora of good reasons to make sure that they (and the cargo packed within them) can handle most differences in gravity and null-gee. Being able to withstand null-G, low-G, and (hopefully transient) high-G is different and separate from being air-tight, which is also different and separate from being able to withstand extreme heat and cold.
Where exactly am I calling for handwavium? This whole discussion about containers is to create a framework and tools for GMs to provide verisimilitude in their cargo ship designs, descriptions of cargo facilities, and various cargo-related procedures - it is exactly the polar opposite of 'just hand wave it'.I dislike handwavium as a norm and prefer not to fall back on it because I was/am being lazy. Hence all this.
All I am saying is that new technologies completely change all sorts of aspects of the world; and they do so in ways that folks have a difficult time predicting. There is an infamous quote: 'I think there is a world market for about five computers' -- remark attributed to Thomas J. Watson (Chairman of the Board of International Business Machines), 1943. Gravitics will have a profound effect on how we do things; cargo handling is a very obvious application -- but consider plumbing, and elevators. Right now we use valves and pumps to move liquids around; but gravity is far superior, and has been our first choice for containing and moving liquids for millennia -- once gravitics are available, cheap, reliable, common bits of consumer goods, then the electric pump is doomed. Valves are doomed. Elevators today use huge counterweights, big electric motors, and have all sorts of mechanical safety brakes 'in case of emergency' -- and all of that will go away completely within a TL or two of mainstream gravitics. So moving a group of shipping containers, held together by common, simple, inexpensive twist-locks, seems like a pretty solid prediction -- especially since we are forced to work within the Traveller paradigm, where mass is ignored and these technologies affect a defined volume.
'Cargo cranes' -- especially big, expensive ones like we use today to pluck single containers off of ships -- will simply not be needed.
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Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
If it's vacuum packed and rather large, with the hull spacecraft grade, you may be looking at a pod or module.
Perhaps there is something being lost in the discussion. When you say "The freighter and the high-port always operate in 0G conditions..." I read that as vacuum. Why? Because while space is indeed 0G, the ships and stations will have full life support and gravity in their cargo bays. There's really no reason why cargo in-transit would ever experience 0G conditions (accidents not-withstanding). It would be equivalent to lashing down cargo in a container today in the even the container experienced a roll-over.
The handwavium statement was a general comment as part of my reasoning. Just my preference, wan't meant to be addressed towards anything specific you mentioned.
I agree with the idea that new technologies will continue to change things. Though, as we've seen from the past few millennia, sometimes the more things change the more they stay the same. Conceptually merchants have sought economies of scale and low operating costs since the beginning of mercantile. I think the same will continue to occur even as the technology changes. I don't know about gravitic valves and pumps - I see how gravitics could have advantages, but the simple valve may stick around as much as the simple screw would. There will always be applications where it's entirely functional and extremely cost-effecient. There are advantages going the other way though.
Fixed cranes and wheeled loading equipment may swap out to grav (though in some cases I'd think wheeled would still be used in some cases by those looking to keep costs low). You may still see fixed devices, or something as simple as a wheeled container crane that straddles it's loads to move things. Cheaper than grav and perfect for some uses. For containers I can see how you'd have a simple grav lift that operates much the same way as a container crane does today - your lifting device is small and would be on the top of the container with similar grab bars that go down on the four corner areas of a container it would lift if from the bottom. The operator could have a simple iPad-like device and using his fingers just control the movement. Made slim enough it could easily work within the confines of a cargo hold w/o issue. Lots of possibilities here with tech.
I think the basic idea is that with grav control, you actively use zero g (not vaccuum!) to do your transportation. No needfor a crane, because you can easily move anything in zero g. No need to manually pick things up to load or unload, just have every container in a groove, switch to zero g, slide it down the groove to wherever it needs to be, once done, flip the switch, back to normal gravity.
So all containers need to be zero g (but not vaccuum) proof, because that allows the shipping line to cut out all the infradtructure related to loading or unloading.
Not sure i can properly picture it, as i think it would require hyper focused gravity changes so that only the area being used by the container to change to zero g, and im not sure what tech level that would happen - ive always assumed the whole ship gets set to the same gravity, which would potentially cause other problems. Without rules, id assume at least TL 15 to make that work, but i could certainly be missing something.
So all containers need to be zero g (but not vaccuum) proof, because that allows the shipping line to cut out all the infradtructure related to loading or unloading.
Not sure i can properly picture it, as i think it would require hyper focused gravity changes so that only the area being used by the container to change to zero g, and im not sure what tech level that would happen - ive always assumed the whole ship gets set to the same gravity, which would potentially cause other problems. Without rules, id assume at least TL 15 to make that work, but i could certainly be missing something.
Having gravity control that precise gets you into the weeds with other applications on the ship, especially with sabotage or other hostilities. I prefer to avoid that sort of thing, so I generally assume the entire ship needs to be uniform gravity (or that locales with separate gravity, like multi environment compartments on the safari ship pay for that privilege).
J. L. Brown
Emperor Mongoose
Your explantion does not actually answer the question. Vacuum and 0G are not the same thing. The vast number of cargo ship designs have the cargo in areas with life support and (artificially supplied & controlled) gravity. Gravity can be turned off or knocked out without affecting any other functions of the ship, including life support.
That is what you are trying to prove, yes. Your assertion is poor support for itself. I disagree; there seem to be strong economic incentives for using gravitics to make manipulating cargo easier, faster, and more efficient. While prototype gravitic technology may lack the refinement to do anything fancy, at TL 9 gravitics are mature and commonly available -- later TLs will show some refinements (just how much per TL is a matter of some controversy) probably by getting rid of redundant lower-TL methods which had been retained as 'back-ups' as gravitics becomes more reliable and accepted.
Okay, so you two are on the same page, then.
Imagine a ship at or above TL 9 -- where gravitics becomes commonly available. The ship is a cargo craft, and designed as a belly-lander; an Empress Marava or Fat Trader are perfect examples. The cargo is in an area with life support, artificial gravity, and 'inertial compensators'. The ship accelerates straight ahead at 1G -- unless all of the contents are accelerated at the same rate, anything not accelerated flies backwards; which is where our 'inertial compensators' enter the picture. The IC gravitics make sure everything in the volume gets the same acceleration, cancelling out the felt effect of the 1G drive inside the ship. So far so good.
Now, the ship is on approach to the high-port, and has to turn to port. The bow moves to the left, while the stern moves to the right; the center of the ship twists counter-clockwise but does not experience a lateral acceleration. Stuff in the center of the ship does not need lateral acceleration by the IC gravitics -- but the stuff 1.5m ahead of the center does. So does the stuff 15m ahead of the center of the ship -- and it needs much more acceleration than the stuff closer to the center; while stuff aft of the center need acceleration in exactly the opposite direction. If the ship is accelerating or braking while turning, then the center of rotation changes.
The artificial gravity already handles all this, even at TL 9.
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So in your view, when a ship is maneuvering in space, no one feels anything?
I haven't extensively thought about it, but my assumption has always been that artificial gravity does two things - it provides an 'up', which is uniform across the ship, and it can negate specific gravity created by the M drive, in one direction.
Turning, turbulence, reactions to an explosion, all continue to feel to the passengers how they would feel in a car; just like in a large bus, you can accelerate and move quite fast forward, without noticing, but if you go through a sharp corner, even slowly, you have to hold on to avoid falling over.
If you're a large ship, it takes you longer to turn. This is why there are piloting checks - if you dont feel anything, and size doesn't matter, you could adjust perfectly and 95% of piloting checks wouldn't be required. The only ones that would matter are where you are aiming for a relatively small spot, in a very limited amount of time.
Again, i could be missing things as i usually just operate under this assimption without thinking about it, but i dont think gravitics and inertial compensators imply perfectly granular perfectly real time gravity control.
I haven't extensively thought about it, but my assumption has always been that artificial gravity does two things - it provides an 'up', which is uniform across the ship, and it can negate specific gravity created by the M drive, in one direction.
Turning, turbulence, reactions to an explosion, all continue to feel to the passengers how they would feel in a car; just like in a large bus, you can accelerate and move quite fast forward, without noticing, but if you go through a sharp corner, even slowly, you have to hold on to avoid falling over.
If you're a large ship, it takes you longer to turn. This is why there are piloting checks - if you dont feel anything, and size doesn't matter, you could adjust perfectly and 95% of piloting checks wouldn't be required. The only ones that would matter are where you are aiming for a relatively small spot, in a very limited amount of time.
Again, i could be missing things as i usually just operate under this assimption without thinking about it, but i dont think gravitics and inertial compensators imply perfectly granular perfectly real time gravity control.
Yes. Anti Gravity is a woo woo tech. That's fine. If I was writing a story, I might adopt some of what you are talking about. But this is a game and I do not find it helpful to put precision gravity control into the players' hands because I don't know how it would work or what the limits are. And neither do they.
There would, in fact, be standard procedures for using gravity in boarding situations and countermeasures for that. There would be clear knowledge of what the smallest area that can be turned off, how fast it turns off, and how fast it can be turned back on. There would be clear information on whether I can use it to throw containers at the Alien Queen.
However, I don't find it worth *my* time to worry this all out and train my players in it. Therefore *I* choose not to have finely controllable anti gravity such as is being discussed regarding cargo movement. I am fine with grav sleds and whatnot.
YMMV.
There would, in fact, be standard procedures for using gravity in boarding situations and countermeasures for that. There would be clear knowledge of what the smallest area that can be turned off, how fast it turns off, and how fast it can be turned back on. There would be clear information on whether I can use it to throw containers at the Alien Queen.
However, I don't find it worth *my* time to worry this all out and train my players in it. Therefore *I* choose not to have finely controllable anti gravity such as is being discussed regarding cargo movement. I am fine with grav sleds and whatnot.
YMMV.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Most efficient way, modified by legacy, divided by bureaucracy, inflated by corruption.
J. L. Brown
Emperor Mongoose
Nobody inside feels anything is one logical way to play it. It could also be that the Inertial Compensators only cancel out the effects of controlled / commanded maneuvers -- if the pilot know that they will be commanding the nose to yaw to port, then the IC acts to counter that -- that way you can allow external 'unplanned' accelerations like turbulent winds, collisions, and explosions to be felt inside.
A space-combat / starship-scale turn is 360 seconds; even basic 1G IC can allow some pretty big changes in that time -- but it is still possible to go outside their capabilities. Higher TL gravitics are assumed to keep pace with the maneuver drives available at each TL; which clears the way for up to 9G maneuvers without going beyond the capabilities of the default IC. Or maybe the IC is specificly only rated to be equal to compensation equal to the thrust of the drive, which means even TL 15 traders with a 1G drive have to stay within that (more limited) performance envelope.
Piloting skill rolls still determine degree of success -- if they didn't matter, they would not be called for.
