This just in! The Benjamin Franklin container ship has docked in the Port of Los Angeles. You can go here - https://twitter.com/PortofLA - and see time lapse video and some imagery from different angles. Now THIS is how trade should be working between mainworlds in Traveller!
Megafreighter in real-life
- Thread starter phavoc
- Start date
That's sort of what I imagined would be handling the bulk of inter-system trade between large worlds..with smaller ships handling distribution to smaller worlds, and picking up the non bulk transport.
I can imagine looking up and actually being able to see a 100k super ship with a good pair of binoculars. and I can see some of those big ship having an almost permanent population.
we used to joke that some of the bigger tankers had their own zip(postal) code...those ships would have their own x-boat account.
I can imagine looking up and actually being able to see a 100k super ship with a good pair of binoculars. and I can see some of those big ship having an almost permanent population.
we used to joke that some of the bigger tankers had their own zip(postal) code...those ships would have their own x-boat account.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Depends on what vibe you want to give, Warhammer, Space Gypsy, or professional megacorp spaceline.
Or Nostromo, as a sub variant.
Or Nostromo, as a sub variant.
a lot of big ships have only 20 r so guys on board. At sea you need a few warm bodies to do routine work..but if things go right there is a lot of work, but nothing major...unless of course a suit wants to come aboard for an inspection, or sightseeing visit...then ya have to get all the bootleg tapes out of sight I guess cds and dvds have replaced those on modern ships. And pray they don't find anybodies stash of adult reading material..you'd think they had found explosives and plans to launch a coup.phavoc said:
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Anonymous
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The big new box ships have crews in the mid 20 range. They can be auto-piloted, or operated by one person from the wheelhouse. Gone are the days of having to telegraph the engine room.
It's nice to see that the USA have finally upgraded their ports to handle these ships.
In Traveller terms, she's got just over 50K dtons of cargo and I don't know how big the rest of the ship is.
In our terms, the measurements are both stupid, arbitrary and confusing and I have no idea what her weight and volume are. Deadweight tonnage only measures cargo weight, and gross tons are a ridiculous volumetric unit that needs a maths degree to comprehend. I'd guess she's 50K tons actual weight empty + the 185K deadweight tons of cargo for about 235 Ktons actual weight.
It's nice to see that the USA have finally upgraded their ports to handle these ships.
In Traveller terms, she's got just over 50K dtons of cargo and I don't know how big the rest of the ship is.
In our terms, the measurements are both stupid, arbitrary and confusing and I have no idea what her weight and volume are. Deadweight tonnage only measures cargo weight, and gross tons are a ridiculous volumetric unit that needs a maths degree to comprehend. I'd guess she's 50K tons actual weight empty + the 185K deadweight tons of cargo for about 235 Ktons actual weight.
Moppy said:
It would be easy enough to calculate Dtons using the ships specs. Except in this case, because the containers are stacked above the deck, we'd need to know just how high they can go to add that into the equations. From the Wikipedia entry, she's 400m long, 54m wide and 70m at the bridge's antenna. Her draft is 16m, but I'm not sure if the ships height takes that into consideration, or if the height is only from the waterline.
But, assuming we used the first three measurements (400mx54x70m) we get 108,000 Dtons. Which seems about right for a ship that's meant to ply the spaceways between worlds.
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Anonymous
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phavoc said:
The height will be the "air draft" (waterline to antenna) as it's what you need for bridges. Suez has a 68m limit and big boxships have to fold the top few meters of their antenna to pass so it sounds correct.
My problem is the antenna rises significantly above the cargo. You can probably fix that calculation by measuring from a photo.
The volume of the ship underwater is known. It's equal (in m^3) to the loaded displacement, or ~235K tons because 1 metric ton of water is 1m^3.
Good luck.
Moppy said:The height will be the "air draft" (waterline to antenna) as it's what you need for bridges. Suez has a 68m limit and big boxships have to fold the top few meters of their antenna to pass so it sounds correct.
My problem is the antenna rises significantly above the cargo. You can probably fix that calculation by measuring from a photo.
The volume of the ship underwater is known. It's equal (in m^3) to the loaded displacement, or ~235K tons because 1 metric ton of water is 1m^3.
Good luck.
That would make it 400*70*70, using the maximum draft.. I used 14 cubic meters, rounding up from the 13.5. That would put the ship at 140,000 Dtons, more or less. Still a respectably sized space freighter.
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Anonymous
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phavoc said:
I get about 100K Vilani displacement tons but this estimate is (1) high and (2) inaccurate.
Above water: 400 x 70x3/4 x 55 (assuming cargo is 3/4 the air draft of the antenna) m^3.
Below water: 235,000 solomani d-tons = 235K m^3.
Combined: (1,155,000 + 235,000) / 14 = 100K Vilani dtons.
However (1) I don't trust the source data, (2) it assumes the ship is a cube and (3) they pile cargo up to 3/4 the height of the antenna.
It's going to be less than my result but I can't say how much under (except that it must exceed the cargo volume, which is 18,000x39 m^3).
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