How to mate a Lab ship with a Free Trader?

[Stingray_tm]

I intend to run Death Station and want my players to be able to use their Free Trader (a Port of Call class ship, comparable to a regular 200t Free Trader) to approach the station. I don't like the idea of open topped Air/Rafts in MTU and also not all of my players have Vacc Suites (or skills for that).

So i would like the two ships to be able via docking and I am not sure how ,uch bigger the 400 ton lab ship is comöared to the 200 ton Free Trader. Could you plausibly argue that the Free Trader could dock instead of a pinnace (with some skill needed)?

Also regarding the docking mechanism of a rotating Lab Ship: The module mentions that the mechanism is designed to prevent the docking ship having to rotate with the ship for easier docking. Which... Does not make sense. If the interface is not rotating, how are you supposed to get from the ship to the spoke?

 

[Vormaerin]

The lab ship is twice the size of a free trader. The docking space on a lab ship is suitable for a much smaller vessel than a free trader. There's no way to connect another ship directly to that docking point, as the connection is on the interior of the docking ring. I would just have the free trader move up to the docking ring and then have folks EVA to the entrance.

There should be emergency pressure suits or some other short duration vacc suits on the free trader that a character can wear for the short time that they need to make that move. Lack of vacc suit skill just means they are at a penalty to all actions while in a vacc suit. So if they remove it once on the lab ship, no problem.

The point of the docking ring on the spoke is the ring itself is not changing location. An airlock on the outer ring is going to be moving, while the inner docking ring is spinning in place. Presumably the pinnace slides into the ring and then some mechanism mates the ring's airlock to the pinnace's. Exactly how that mechanism would work, I don't know. But it seems reasonable that that problem is less complicated than trying to attach to a specific spot on the outer hull as it moves.

 

[Alqualonde]

As far as I know, there is an airlock in the outer ring. But the Far Trader's pilot will have to match the ship's rotation (if any, it is not mandatory as the Lab Ship is fitted with grav plates). And any mistake might damage both ships.
The pinnace airlock doesn't seems to be usable with anything else than a pinnace (The pinnace must be in the ring, so any other ship must fit).
An airraft can reach both airlock, the easiest being the pinnace one (if the Lab Ship is under rotation).
My best guess is that the Lab Ship is under rotation to avoid any ship from docking. Otherwise, the characters would have a safe place to retreat to.

 

[Alqualonde]

As for the size, as said by Vormaerin, a Lab Ship is twice the volume of a Far Trader. But with a very different shape.
The Free/Far Trader is around 51m long & 30m wide (and 7 or 8 meters high).
The Lab Ship seems to be a bit over 60m in diameter (according to the maps, circumference is 192m) and 11m wide.

 

[Reisender]

I intend to run Death Station and want my players to be able to use their Free Trader (a Port of Call class ship, comparable to a regular 200t Free Trader) to approach the station. I don't like the idea of open topped Air/Rafts in MTU and also not all of my players have Vacc Suites (or skills for that).

I feel that Vacc-Suit 0 is almost a mandatory skill for every Traveller to have. If not obtained during character creation an appropriate skill package should remedy it. With vacc-suits on board I think it would be an appropriate skill to learn during jump downtime.
And while Vacc-Suit 0 may not be enough to operate on your own in more difficult situations, it should be enough to bridge a gap between two ships with some assistance from more experienced vacc-suit users and the use of some cables.

 

[Vormaerin]

As for the size, as said by Vormaerin, a Lab Ship is twice the volume of a Far Trader. But with a very different shape.
The Free/Far Trader is around 51m long & 30m wide (and 7 or 8 meters high).
The Lab Ship seems to be a bit over 60m in diameter (according to the maps, circumference is 192m) and 11m wide.

I looked at a couple different floorplans for lab ships and didn't see an outer ring airlock. I was expecting there to be one near the cargo bay, but I either missed it or it isn't there. I suppose the design assumption is that a ship with that shape isn't docking and all transfers are via the pinnace?

Couple options:

1) Players transfer via EVA with emergency vacc suits/pressure sleeves
2) You change the open top air/raft for a closed topped air/raft. Examples of those certainly exist.
3) You assume there is an airlock by the cargo bay and have the free trader dock there after the pilot matches any rotation.

 

[Vormaerin]

I feel that Vacc-Suit 0 is almost a mandatory skill for every Traveller to have. If not obtained during character creation an appropriate skill package should remedy it. With vacc-suits on board I think it would be an appropriate skill to learn during jump downtime.
And while Vacc-Suit 0 may not be enough to operate on your own in more difficult situations, it should be enough to bridge a gap between two ships with some assistance from more experienced vacc-suit users and the use of some cables.

I agree that if your characters are expected to operate a ship, they would have basic training in how to use a vacc suit. I tend to use the actual vacc suit skill as Zero G familiarity, not "can you put on a vacc suit and still function". I assume any PC can wear a pressure sleeve or softsuit without a problem, only the hard suits or specialized suits needing actual skill. Only making vacc suit task checks to do something fancy.

 

[Condottiere]

1. I'm not that familiar with the laboratory ship.

2. First question would be, how does the crew kickstart the rotation?

3. You'd need to allocate ten percent of volume to the rotational machinery.

4. If it's a double hull, cost increase is one percent, likely per percent allocated to the outer hull.

5. If it's defined as a hamster cage, or wheel in this case, cost is two percent plus per percent allocated.

6. None of which appears to be mentioned in the current High Guard's example.

7. Possibly, what's allocated as docking space (five tonnes), and docking clamp (five tonnes) are inverse double hulled, so that while the rest of the laboratory rotates, these features counter rotate in the opposite direction, creating a stabilized platform that anything between thirty one and ninety nine tonnes can dock, though capped at forty tonnes due to the allocated docking space.

8. I would suppose.

 

[Alqualonde]

I looked at a couple different floorplans for lab ships and didn't see an outer ring airlock. I was expecting there to be one near the cargo bay, but I either missed it or it isn't there. I suppose the design assumption is that a ship with that shape isn't docking and all transfers are via the pinnace?

Couple options:

1) Players transfer via EVA with emergency vacc suits/pressure sleeves
2) You change the open top air/raft for a closed topped air/raft. Examples of those certainly exist.
3) You assume there is an airlock by the cargo bay and have the free trader dock there after the pilot matches any rotation.

In the 2020 Corebook plans, quarter 3, area n° 6 (right in the middle, just by the lift to the pinnace). The airlock has an exit on the floor. Same for the 2016 corebook. Not easy to see, I had to check several times.
Normally a ship is supposed to have 1 airlock per 100dT (if you need more, they will take space). But I guess most transfers are done by the pinnace. I need to check, but I think that in previous editions, the Lab Ship was unstreamlined.

 

[Vormaerin]

Ah. I think I lumped that with the "get to the pinnace" stuff, not "or get out the other way".

 

[Saladman]

I intend to run Death Station and want my players to be able to use their Free Trader (a Port of Call class ship, comparable to a regular 200t Free Trader) to approach the station. I don't like the idea of open topped Air/Rafts in MTU and also not all of my players have Vacc Suites (or skills for that).

So i would like the two ships to be able via docking and I am not sure how ,uch bigger the 400 ton lab ship is comöared to the 200 ton Free Trader. Could you plausibly argue that the Free Trader could dock instead of a pinnace (with some skill needed)?
...

This sounds like taking game play decisions away from the players. If they want to try to dock an oversized ship, roll Pilot and find out. If they don't like those odds its a good time to increase time taken, or use a task chain (Sensors to read off distance, Piloting from a co-pilot, Astrogation to plot a straight shot in, at a stretch maybe M-Drives to keep the thrusters steady and light). But!, except for letting the players know task chains are an option I'm not saying suggest any of those, that's the GM playing for the players again.

If they don't want to dock, they can see if there are extra cheap vacc suits in the ship's locker.

If there aren't extra cheap vacc suits in the ship's locker, there's a good chance there are rescue balls. Now the vacc suited characters just have to get the rescue balled characters over and across, and cram the balls into an airlock one at a time. This is not impossible, and might make a fun scene of play.

If there aren't rescue balls, maybe they can split the party just long enough to go across and look for extra suits.

In the absolute worst case, maybe they can Mechanic a low berth into being portable and pressurized without actually freezing anyone, and hauling that across.

The problem for them is actually an opportunity for game play, not a problem its the GM's job to solve ahead of time.

I feel that Vacc-Suit 0 is almost a mandatory skill for every Traveller to have. If not obtained during character creation an appropriate skill package should remedy it. With vacc-suits on board I think it would be an appropriate skill to learn during jump downtime.

If they get through rolling, plus skill packages, plus connections picks without any particular skill they "should have," I just let it ride. Its no worse than having a minor Disad in some other systems. Might even make a point of interest.

And while Vacc-Suit 0 may not be enough to operate on your own in more difficult situations, it should be enough to bridge a gap between two ships with some assistance from more experienced vacc-suit users and the use of some cables.

Its enough to avoid rolling until they're in danger, or the task is "especially difficult or hazardous." I'd give them it even without the assistance, unless there's some extra environmental danger or time pressure going on.

The unskilled characters on the other hand would definitely need their hands held, unless they want to risk rolling at -3 in the void.

 

[Vormaerin]

In the 2020 Corebook plans, quarter 3, area n° 6 (right in the middle, just by the lift to the pinnace). The airlock has an exit on the floor. Same for the 2016 corebook. Not easy to see, I had to check several times.
Normally a ship is supposed to have 1 airlock per 100dT (if you need more, they will take space). But I guess most transfers are done by the pinnace. I need to check, but I think that in previous editions, the Lab Ship was unstreamlined.

I looked at it again, I think that's the dashed line of a roof exit, as I thought originally.

 

[Stingray_tm]

But still the pinnace you neef to rotate with the docking ring, doesn't it? I can think of no mechanism where the pinnace is not spinning and the lab ship is, if you want to actually transfer.

 

[Vormaerin]

Might be possible to have a mechanism where the docking ring can be set to be stable for docking/undocking and then sync'ed to the rotation?

 

[Stingray_tm]

This is the quote from the adventure:

"The structure at the end of the single spoke is specifically mounted to counteract the ship’s rotation, making docking easier for lesser-skilled pilots."

This does indeed not rule out that the docking mechanism then starts spinning the pinnace.

 

[Matthew]

Please note: "A special feature of this ship is that it is built so internal gravity can be created by spinning the hull". That is the description from the corebook. Note the "can" part, that "can" can easily be interpreted as the ship still has normal grav platting installed but these are turned off when sciency stuff is happening. It goes on to say "This is done to permit experiements to be carried out that might otherwise be affected by the gravetic plates installed as standard on all ships." I would assume that when the ship is actually NOT doing sciency stuff, normal ship operations take over and the complications of spin are removed as the plates are turned back on.

My assumption is that grav plates are installed as this is a jump capable ship and how does rotating the ring work in jump space.

Note however that even if you consider this not to be the case, normal docking operations can easily adapt to a rotating spin, making it a standard action to match velocity and connect to the ring.

 

[Spartan159]

... What would you make the pilot roll for this?

 

[Matthew]

... What would you make the pilot roll for this?

That is certainly the point where the rolls start coming in. Not for the docking as such but due to the debris and the nature of the spin now being unpredictable.

 

[IanBruntlett]

From the 2016 Core Rulebook, "Spacecraft Operations", page 143:
Docking
Two spacecraft may dock if they are close together
and neither ship attempts to resist the docking
manoeuvre. Many airlock designs across charted space
are compatible; for incompatible airlocks, ships extend
flexible plastic docking tubes that adapt to the target
airlock. Docking with another vessel requires a Routine
(6+) Pilot check (1D minutes).

If you have the 2022 Core Rulebook update, see "Spacecraft Operations" -> "Docking" page 152

 

[Condottiere]

The B-wing was unusual compared to other starfighters in that its command pod featured a unique gyroscopic control system that kept it stationary as the rest of the starfighter rotated around it.