Full Hangars or Recovery Decks?

Margin for error at those accelerations and distances (or lack thereof), would be rather narrow.

So, you remove two potential unknowns, in favour of two knowns.

Option would be the garbage net.
 
Margin for error at those accelerations and distances (or lack thereof), would be rather narrow.

So, you remove two potential unknowns, in favour of two knowns.

Option would be the garbage net.

Why? Match speed, acceleration, and direction, then dock. Both can still be under thrust. It doesn't apply to spaceships, but even aircraft carriers are under thrust for flight operations, including helicopters, which don't use the arrestor system.
 
It's more that if there is an accident, for whatever reason, the spacecraft will veer off course, and at that speed, it could be catastrophic.
 
It's more that if there is an accident, for whatever reason, the spacecraft will veer off course, and at that speed, it could be catastrophic.
That is all movement. No one is trying to dock at a relative speed of a million kph. Match speed, direction, and velocity. A computer can do it better than a human. Let the computer do it. Like 10 years ago they had a drone leave a hangar in one state, taxi, take-off, fly to its destination, land, taxi, and park in a hangar. All of this without any human intervention. If We can do that now, We need to quit pretending that flying and landing are difficult, especially in an area with no atmosphere. That was done with a TL-7 computer. In Traveller terms, that is Computer/0.
 
I'm going to assume that two spacecraft are free to accelerate all they want, until it's time for the docking procedure.

Then they match velocities, and both cut acceleration at the last mile, using manoeuvre jets to gentle embrace.
 
Why? Match speed, acceleration, and direction, then dock. Both can still be under thrust. It doesn't apply to spaceships, but even aircraft carriers are under thrust for flight operations, including helicopters, which don't use the arrestor system.
The docking bay is a tight fit with no room for error. Especially those cylindrical holes drilled into the main hull. That is a reasonable restriction. Combat level thrust can be applied at any direction, and sometimes that implies swinging the ship around for delta-V. Very difficult for a ship trying to squeeze itself in to flip around to match vectors AGAIN without breaking something.

The aircraft carriers are using the TL 5 equivalent of Recovery bays, which allow thrust.

Full Hangars: Bigger openings, more forgiving. I could see using coordinated thrust while docking, BUT interrupting the docking clock, as with the previous example of using only part of the turn for landing. Also, I would rule that you would need the flight control software installed and be under your control limit.
 
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The docking is automated...

to tock you have to match orbits, this is the bit that takes time. You can't just turn on you magic maneuver drive and head there at 100km/s decelerate and dock.

To be in the same orbit you have to be at 7km/s (I'm using approximate numbers cos lets face it this is Traveller and g is 10), which means you are in the envelope of orbital mechanics.
 
As my old boss told me, after finding me climbing up an office chair, it can turn out right nine hundred and ninety nine times out of a thousand.

And our game is Craps.

Also, why we got rid of reentring through launch tubes.

Finally, dead stop before jumping down the rabbit hole.
 
What do you guys use more of on your Carrier-type warships and warstarships?

Full Hangars or Recovery Decks? The Full Hangars allow each ship to embark/disembark in 2-12 minutes. Recovery Decks are 5 times the size and allow 1 ship to land every 6 minutes.
Docking clamps. A few hangars (construction decks?) for maintenance during jump

Launch Tubes and Recovery Decks are silly ineffective. The carrier should not be anywhere near combat, just stop accelerating and drop/recover in a few minutes.
 
Canon fleet carriers tend to be dead slow.

I tend to think the point was launching the smallcraft to form an immediate screen, and recovering them in a hurry, like when you're about to leave the system.
 
I tend to think the point was launching the smallcraft to form an immediate screen, and recovering them in a hurry, like when you're about to leave the system.
By RAW you can launch and recover all of your carried craft in a few rounds with clamps/docking spaced/hangars. You need a silly amount of recovery decks to make it faster.

Example: With 100 fighters in clamps, you can launch or recover all of them in three rounds. To recover faster, say in two rounds, 50 fighters per round, you would need 50 recovery decks, as large as 500 fighters or 250 Full Hangars. That would make the carrier six times as large and hence expensive, i.e. silly expensive.
 
That depends.

Command and control of smallcraft is probably easier internally, than have them glued on the hull.

At least, for human crewed ones.
 
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