Rethinking The X-Boat

[alex_greene]

There are rules for customisation of ships in High Guard Update 2022 which are starting to make X-Boats look less like a punishment duty.
I've personally expressed the design philosophy that a Jump-capable mothership can Jump anywhere into a star system's empty space, and just hang there, absorbing sunlight for power with solar panels and maintaining station keeping with solar sails. X-boats are designed without M-drive engines; perhaps we can look at redesigning these vessels using the HG2022 Spacecraft Options and Customising Ships rules.

Keep the basic performance - 100 dtons, Jump-4. No M-drive. Assume all components to be TL 15. Can somebody conjure up stats for a viable TL 15 X-Boat which uses Collectors? Also, if there is room freed up in your design, put in Biospheres for the crew.

 

[Ol'Weedy]

There are rules for customisation of ships in High Guard Update 2022 which are starting to make X-Boats look less like a punishment duty.
I've personally expressed the design philosophy that a Jump-capable mothership can Jump anywhere into a star system's empty space, and just hang there, absorbing sunlight for power with solar panels and maintaining station keeping with solar sails. X-boats are designed without M-drive engines; perhaps we can look at redesigning these vessels using the HG2022 Spacecraft Options and Customising Ships rules.

Keep the basic performance - 100 dtons, Jump-4. Assume all components to be TL 15. Can somebody conjure up stats for a viable TL 15 X-Boat which uses Collectors? Also, if there is room freed up in your design, put in Biospheres for the crew.

I really need to read more thoroughly before posting...
After a bit of tinkering, I have to say, be careful allowing their use. Even with the 1 week downtime, they would change ship design utterly. It all seems balanced until you realize the ship has a LOT more space (on an x-boat, 40 tons of fuel compared to 9 tons of collector), so either the jump drive is going to be maxed to whatever TL can make one, or every ship will have collectors AND regular fuel, and be able to do a double jump. More likely both. Since a regular tramp ship will be wasting a few days heading to and from port from it's jump point, the week wait isn't much of a burden.
I would seriously consider upping the cost by 5 or 10x, or everybody will have them, and they won't be very exotic anymore.
They are only .1MCr per ton more expensive than solar panels (which I'd argue need to have their cost cut by similar ratios).

Another thing I'm noticing, is that with TL15 Fusion, it makes almost no sense at all to not have at least a 1g m-drive. One extra ton and 10 power is pretty easy to fit when you have an extra 31 tons, and double the power of the existing boat per PP ton.

 

[Gavain]

Personally I would add a M-drive to the X boat so that it isn't stranded when it jumps into a system. As it stands every system that gets a visit from an X boat, must also have the tender there to service it.

 

[Reisender]

Personally I would add a M-drive to the X boat so that it isn't stranded when it jumps into a system. As it stands every system that gets a visit from an X boat, must also have the tender there to service it.

That would take away the interesting part and the one thing that sets it apart from normal ships. And it would make the Express Boat Tender (High Guard 2016, page 156) more or less redundant.

 

[Arkathan]

I really need to read more thoroughly before posting...
After a bit of tinkering, I have to say, be careful allowing their use. Even with the 1 week downtime, they would change ship design utterly. It all seems balanced until you realize the ship has a LOT more space (on an x-boat, 40 tons of fuel compared to 9 tons of collector), so either the jump drive is going to be maxed to whatever TL can make one, or every ship will have collectors AND regular fuel, and be able to do a double jump. More likely both. Since a regular tramp ship will be wasting a few days heading to and from port from it's jump point, the week wait isn't much of a burden.
I would seriously consider upping the cost by 5 or 10x, or everybody will have them, and they won't be very exotic anymore.
They are only .1MCr per ton more expensive than solar panels (which I'd argue need to have their cost cut by similar ratios).

Another thing I'm noticing, is that with TL15 Fusion, it makes almost no sense at all to not have at least a 1g m-drive. One extra ton and 10 power is pretty easy to fit when you have an extra 31 tons, and double the power of the existing boat per PP ton.

Collectors collect based upon the movement of the solar wind.
Scoops scoop, and need movement

 

[Arkathan]

Here's my try at a cushy X-Boat. (See attached)

 

[Ol'Weedy]

Using collectors...Cushy AND fast. And expensive.
But you wouldn't mind getting posted to one.

 

[Condottiere]

As I recall it, someone proposed two breakaway hulls, with one being a Collector that scoots around recharging itself, and then mating with an incoming ecks boat, who divorces the worn out Collector hull it's currently cohabitating with.

 

[Sigtrygg]

An x-boat has a turn around time of only a couple of hours. Carrying an m-drive through jump for it to never be used is a waste. It's a bit like the economy of the LASH merchant - the jump ship makes its money jumping, not moving backwards and forwards between jump point and planet.

 

[Vormaerin]

Which was also my concern with using a collector system on an X boat.

 

[Ol'Weedy]

An x-boat has a turn around time of only a couple of hours. Carrying an m-drive through jump for it to never be used is a waste. It's a bit like the economy of the LASH merchant - the jump ship makes its money jumping, not moving backwards and forwards between jump point and planet.

Oh, I completely agree. Was just adding features like a kid in a candy store to fill all that delicious fuel tank space.
Imagine the psychological distress of having to sit stationary for a week while sitting on a hot rod engine!
I COULD have fit a miniaturized small missile bay, but that's a different kind of redundant.
Was more an example of why I doubt I'd ever use them (as a Ref), unless for a one-off alien ship or something similar.

 

[alex_greene]

An x-boat has a turn around time of only a couple of hours. Carrying an m-drive through jump for it to never be used is a waste. It's a bit like the economy of the LASH merchant - the jump ship makes its money jumping, not moving backwards and forwards between jump point and planet.

Even if it had a minimal M-drive, something like 0.01 Thrust, it can still move towards an approaching tender.
Besides, these days it's established that most ships make one Jump every two weeks, with one week in system to recover. And sometimes, X boats need to carry something solid in their holds. You can't transmit a person through the Mail Distribution Array.

 

[AndrewW]

Even if it had a minimal M-drive, something like 0.01 Thrust, it can still move towards an approaching tender.
Besides, these days it's established that most ships make one Jump every two weeks, with one week in system to recover. And sometimes, X boats need to carry something solid in their holds. You can't transmit a person through the Mail Distribution Array.

No, but if you happen to equip it with a matter transporter.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Even if it had a minimal M-drive, something like 0.01 Thrust, it can still move towards an approaching tender.
Besides, these days it's established that most ships make one Jump every two weeks, with one week in system to recover. And sometimes, X boats need to carry something solid in their holds. You can't transmit a person through the Mail Distribution Array.

The canon of x-boat jump routines is well established, they jump within hours. LASH makes sense for megacorporations and large shipping lines, not PC scale ethically challenged merchants - which is the two week jump model.

The tender can carry passengers and physical goods to the x-boat, or 6g ship's boat.

 

[Condottiere]

In theory, since the pilot has nothing to do for a week, he could prep the ecks boat for the next jump.

But, I think he'd need at least engineering/zero and mechanic/zero for that, possibly electronics/zero.

 

[Vormaerin]

they are sort of reverse pony express. Instead of the rider swapping horses at the posts, the tender swaps the pilot as it refuels the boat when the pilot needs rotated out.

 

[alex_greene]

The canon of x-boat jump routines is well established, they jump within hours. LASH makes sense for megacorporations and large shipping lines, not PC scale ethically challenged merchants - which is the two week jump model.

The tender can carry passengers and physical goods to the x-boat, or 6g ship's boat.

Relays.
The X-Boat leaving the system need not necessarily be the same one that just jumped in.

 

[Vormaerin]

Could do that. Requires a lot more X-boats and pilots.

 

[Sigtrygg]

It rarely is.

it jumps, relays i t s messages to the station on arrival, and then waits to be
picked up by a tender, to be refuelled and sent on its way with a new load of
messages. The local station, meanwhile, accepts messages, encodes them, and
transmits them to a tender at the edges of the stellar system. Messages brought by
the arriving xboat and intended for further down the line are consolidated with the
new data and all are sent on to another xboat already fuelled and standing ready to
leave. The entire network operates like the pony express - messages are always
moving at top speed. Transfer time for messages from one xboat to another can be
as short as ten minutes, and is rarely more than an hour.

 

[Peleliu]

Relays.
The X-Boat leaving the system need not necessarily be the same one that just jumped in.

That has always been my take. Time in jump space has some variability so the tender wont know exactly to the minute when an x-boat will arrive, but the next boat and crew would be on ready status regardless. Once the expected boat arrives, any needed data begins transfer immediately. Once data transfer is complete and any needed physical cargo is transferred, the new boat can head out within hours if not minutes. I would assume a critical priority message can sometimes be the only data an x-boat would carry. It might not take more then a few minutes for a boat to jump in, flash a message to a tender that a Zhodani invasion has begun, and see a ready x-boat shove off to begin the next jump.

I never thought a tender would be a small ship, but rather near to light cruiser size with repair, refueling, and replacement crew facilities and a fair number of small craft tied to it as well. I assume an x-boat tender would have a half dozen or more x-boats docked at any given time undergoing repairs, refueling, or on standby. Much like historical PT, destroyer or submarine tenders did during WW2.