Modules for the Modular Cutter

[AnotherDilbert]

With a breakaway design you could make an expandable spacecraft.

Start small and add sections needed.
Need more space? Add a cargo section.
Want to go faster? Add a manoeuvre section.
Want to go elsewhere? Add a jump section.
https://forum.mongoosepublishing.com/threads/the-lego-ship-system.120111/post-916593

 

[Condottiere]

But your per tonne cost just jumped by forty kilostarbux.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

But your per tonne cost just jumped by forty kilostarbux.

It's economic suicide, but it was a fun concept.

 

[Condottiere]

I'm sure I could figure out a loophole.

But first, I have to get my Doctorate of Cunning from Oxford University.

 

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

I don't think the Eagle Transporter module was ever totally integrated with the primary hull.

It seems more likely a variant of the docking clamp.

For Traveller rules since it keeps its streamlining a breakaway hull does that but a docking clamp does not. Neither would an external module. So for my purposes it is a breakaway hull.

You can also move easily between the module and the Eagle command section which a docking clamp doesn't explicitly allow. I myself would so allow for ships explicitly designed to use the clamp to dock to airlocks (cargo, passenger or both at once) and assume such standards exist within my major empire at least (though not of course compatible with any pocket empires the PCs might be in).

 

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

I want a whole evolution of these things. The modular cutter, the heavy cutter, the jump cutter, the heavy jump cutter etc. I think with a few interchangeable front sections (snubby - cockpit rather than a bridge, standard and long nose - with a larger bridge or staterooms) and a few different rear power sets you could get a great deal of flexibility (a sort of modular modular cutter if you will). With two modules side by side you can gain a good deal of real estate to link the front and back sections With three side-by-side the centre "module" could actually be fixed (and more structural) just having the same dimensions and access linkages as a regular module. This could easily fit a jump engine, a beefed up M-drive, fuel tanks or additional staterooms.

No detachable bridge for your jump cutter?

 

[Condottiere]

That's a fifty percent premium over the default.

And depending which option that is offered you choose (or think is accurate), between twenty to fifty percent larger.

 

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

That's a fifty percent premium over the default.

And depending which option that is offered you choose (or think is accurate), between twenty to fifty percent larger.

Great to let the villain survive and escape while the players get their ship operating again though.

I saw a video recently where the "forks" on the Millennium Falcon were where a detachable bridge belonged and since Hans didn't have it he built the bridge we see as an improvised bridge. Let the PCs salvage such a vessel and see what they do about the lack of a bridge.

 

[swordtart]

Breakaway hull seems a bargain compared to modular hulls. I am a little unsure about the requirement for each sub-element to have a bridge though (though this could be a 1.5 ton cockpit). If you had virtual crew would you need a bridge at all, the lifeboat doesn't have them. If you put the bridge engineering station in the back end do you need one on the bridge at the front. If so can you split a 6 tons bridge into 2 x 3 ton sub bridges. If the total ship is 100 ton but no section is larger than 50 tons can have 2 x 3 tons bridges?

Too many questions

The powerplant is easy since there is no performance difference between 2 x 1 ton plants or a single 2 ton plant. Each section can have it's power requirement calculated separately (ditto M-drives).

 

[Condottiere]

I haven't seen the option where you can add on tonnage from various bridges to maintain, or increase, control/performance.

As regards the Millennium Falcon, the forks were retconned into either a dock for an escape capsule, or cargo pusher.

It's possible they could be used for both.

 

[Arkathan]

When connected, the other bridges would be aux control stations.
As to the main body, just size it for the maximum volume you'll have. A 20 ton bridge covers everything bigger than a free trader, up to 1,000 Dtons. A 40 ton bridge covers everything in the Adventure class ships.
If you are not doing a military campaign, you should have no need for the 60 ton bridge that takes you up to 100k.

 

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

Breakaway hull seems a bargain compared to modular hulls.

It is until you get to large size differences. Your 30 ton personal launch on a 1000 ton ship would require the 1000 ton ship to use 20 tons of breakaway hull. I house rule it as both hulls need 2% of the smaller hull so in that case .6 tons each.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Breakaway hull seems a bargain compared to modular hulls.

2% of 50 Dt is 1 Dt at MCr 2. More expensive than a clamp or docking space.

Modular hull adds 0 Dt and MCr 1.8 to the main hull, and 0 Dt and MCr 0.75 to each module. A little bit more expensive, but 0 Dt is an advantage.

I am a little unsure about the requirement for each sub-element to have a bridge though (though this could be a 1.5 ton cockpit). If you had virtual crew would you need a bridge at all, the lifeboat doesn't have them.

Yes. You must have a bridge in each section, but a craft that can be completely automised with Virtual Crew (i.e. small craft) can omit the bridge.

HG, p12:
Each section must have an appropriate bridge and power plant to operate it. Manoeuvre drive, jump drive, sensors, weapons, screens and so forth are all options that can (and, under normal circumstances, should) be included in each section.

HG, p75:
Crew can replace up to five pilots, gunners or sensor operators on board a ship, potentially allowing the ship to act autonomously if all crew can be replaced in this way. Indeed, ships can be designed without a bridge, relying purely on this software package in order to function as a drone.

Virtual Crew of course requires a computer to run it, but that takes no space.

If you put the bridge engineering station in the back end do you need one on the bridge at the front. If so can you split a 6 tons bridge into 2 x 3 ton sub bridges. If the total ship is 100 ton but no section is larger than 50 tons can have 2 x 3 tons bridges?

Technically you must have "a bridge" of the required size, but if everything else is added together, why not add the bridges too?

 

[swordtart]

Modular hull doesn't work if you want the power section to be swappable as a unit since the module cannot contain any of the key ships functions.

I had mis-read breakaway hull and had assumed the 2% applied to the bit that was breaking away rather than the whole ship. In my 50:50 example this wouldn't have made that much difference but on a large ship with a small breakaway part it would be prohibitively expensive (and seems illogical so I am liking fluffy bunny's house rule)

Docking clamps take up a wedge of tonnage and the docked elements cannot contribute their m-drive to the whole. Docking spaces are hideously expensive for anything other than tiny ships. I have assumed both these allow access by non-vacc suited personnel and allow the docked vessel to be under ship standard life support which might be their primary advantage.

External cargo mounts are both cheaper and take up no tonnage as far as I can tell. They make planetary landings very risky however which means some additional small craft for delivery and extra time to make deliveries. I am going to presume however that they are only for "standard cargo containers" rather than for whatever you feel like bolting on. Any such container will spend the majority of its travel time at the temperature of space so I am wary of what goods could be transported without deterioration unless the containers had some temperature regulation (that was capable of operating for weeks at at time over a 250 degree differential). Extreme thermal compression might well damage any product that is composed of materials with different rates of thermal expansion. If shipped direct from orbit to planet that rate of expansion might also be rapid and subject to considerable condensation effects.

With these nuances we need to be careful not to gloss over the disadvantages of any specific component or start attributing capabilities that are not explicit since these may be the very things that alternative ship components address.

 

[Condottiere]

I'd say external cargo can be anything, though I'd hesitate to strapping your pet carrier on the hull.

Also, probably as vulnerable as drop tanks.

 

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

Can you use modules and/or breakaway hulls with a asteroid hull?

To be clear with the module I would assume it is of standard module construction being inserted into a asteroid hull. Breakaway hull either 1 or both could be an asteroid for purposes of this question (lets you build asteroid based space stations 1 component at a time).

Breakaway hulls are great for expanding a space station especially if you have a standard design.

 

[Arkathan]

Can you use modules and/or breakaway hulls with a asteroid hull?

Yes

 

[Condottiere]

Coincidentally, I'm working on a planetoid starship, and I've been wrestling with that design feature.

There's no prohibition, but it does raise the question as to how you'd switch them, considering that it would require cargo hatches to have access to them.

Especially, if you utilize the full seventy five percent, which either could be based on the total volume, or usable volume.

 

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

What made me wonder was in HG22 page 10 it says "Note that planetoid hulls cannot use specialized or additional hull types, listed in the following sections."

Breakaway hulls are under Additional Hull types. Modular hulls are under Spacecraft Options page 44. So outside house rules type it does look like breakaway hulls aren't allowed and modular could be seen as questionable.

 

[Arkathan]

What made me wonder was in HG22 page 10 it says "Note that planetoid hulls cannot use specialized or additional hull types, listed in the following sections."

Breakaway hulls are under Additional Hull types. Modular hulls are under Spacecraft Options page 44. So outside house rules type it does look like breakaway hulls aren't allowed and modular could be seen as questionable.

Sorry about that, Modular isn't in those sections, and is allowed. it isn't a specialized or an additional hull type, but a hull option.

Kind of dumb that you cannot have a non-artificial gravity hull, considering all the tropes of spinning up asteroids for hab gravity.