Ship Design Philosophy

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Hulls and Junkers

Q. I was thinking originally, that you leverage the cheapest hull costs, for each particular function, and weld them together.

R. The cheapest being planetoid, combined with space station control centre, combined cost sixty one and a half hundred per usable tonne.

S. Then you need a jump shuttle, where a gravitated floor wouldn't matter, since you can transfer during the transition, down to the rock.

T. My choice would be a lightened non gravitated dispersed configured hull with a full bridge, at 14'375.00 per tonne.

U. So, maybe have the jump shuttle a planetoid as well, and use a docking clamp instead of welding?

 

[Condottiere]

Starships: How to Navigate in Realistic Space Travel

Spacedock delves into the fascinating subject of space navigation.

Galactic Positioning Stars.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Hulls and Junkers

V. Fuel 37'740 tonnes, three budget jump drive modules factor/two 9'450 tonnes, one budget manoeuvre drive module factor/three 3150 tonnes, one budget manoeuvre drive factor/zero 250 tonnes, two budget early fusion reactors modules 6'300 tonnes, three budget early fusion reactors modules 930 tonnes each, space station control centre 60 tonnes, full bridge 60 tonnes; wastage 37'740 tonnes.

W. Total 95,430 tonnes, balance 93'270 tonnes.

X. Fuel 37'740, jump drive 9'450, manoeuvre drive 3150, power plant 6'300, full bridge 60; wastage presumably 17'740.

Y. Total 74'440 tonnes, balance 14,260 tonnes.

Z. Payload 100'000 tonnes, overall total 188'700 tonnes.

 

[wingsday]

I was thinking about battle tenders just now. I was planning on using a design that can lift 2 main line combatants, so probably using 2 clamp 5s is sufficient. However, giving the tender some flexibility, so it could carry some combination of: 1 first rate ship, or handful of cruisers, or a flotilla of destroyers, or a second rate ship and a couple patrol wings etc, would be a good advantage, but enabling this would require a set of clamps for each possible outfitting, which ends up being rather a lot eventually. I was thinking it might make more sense to use the 2 clamp 5s and attach a relatively minimal gantry customized for the specific mission. However this runs into the problem where a clamp5 can't, RAW, grab anything less than 2001t, which means you're wasting probably an extra 1kt at least for your most tonnage intensive alternative lifts, which kind of sucks. The obvious alternative is to just put an extra clamp5 on the gantry to grab the tender, but that still means you're paying twice for the gantry/tender connection, I wonder if it wouldn't be fine to just say that the gantry is specifically designed to be compatible with the clamp5 despite whatever size it normally is (perhaps with the downside that it's incompatible with a size appropriate clamp?)?

 

[Condottiere]

I thought about this, when I revised the Confederation Navy docking clamp family.

I think I came up with two options:

1. Attach the docking clamp to the docking hull, in which case, it only needs to be large enough to support that tonnage, rather than relying on the one of the battle tender.

2. I'm not saying this is actually realistic, nor it would seem to me economical, but would seem to be within rules as written; have the docking clamp/victor grab a two thousand and one tonne hull, which has a suitably sized, or a series of smaller docking clamps, with which you can then grab a smaller hull - there's no restriction on the number of docking clamps you can have on a hull, nor how much tonnage can be docked and accelerated, safely.

 

[wingsday]

I thought about this, when I revised the Confederation Navy docking clamp family.

I think I came up with two options:

1. Attach the docking clamp to the docking hull, in which case, it only needs to be large enough to support that tonnage, rather than relying on the one of the battle tender.

2. I'm not saying this is actually realistic, nor it would seem to me economical, but would seem to be within rules as written; have the docking clamp/victor grab a two thousand and one tonne hull, which has a suitably sized, or a series of smaller docking clamps, with which you can then grab a smaller hull - there's no restriction on the number of docking clamps you can have on a hull, nor how much tonnage can be docked and accelerated, safely.

The second one is really silly though, so there's that lmao.

I guess another alternative would be to just have a clamp3, clamp4, and clamp5 (i think clamp2 is extraneous, because the smallest tonnage of clamps you would want on a gantry for a large tender is 2 clamp5s which is 100t) on each point, so you can carry any useful size gantry. While this means you're always using up an extra 30t for each point, you can perhaps use them in combination, so if you wanted to carry a 2nd rate ship+patrol wing you could put the 2nd rate on the tender's clamp5(saving 50t on the gantry) and the patrol wing on a gantry on the clamp4, would maybe require some testing though.
another alternative is that the clamp tonnage refers to the total tonnage held by the clamp, so a clamp5 attached to a ~200t gantry attached to 4 10kt destroyers is just fine and you couldn't use a clamp3 to hold that

 

[Condottiere]

The docking clamp system in Mongoose seems rather unrealistic, but that aside.

The thing about docking clamp/victors is that they have limitless tonnage, from fifty tonnes onwards, at two kilotonnes plus, one reason I decided to redesign anything between one and two kilotonnes, and became convinced that the Confederation Navy wouldn't really bother with anything less than five kilotonnes, especially if they plan to transport it via docking clamps.

At the scale where you likely plan to transport a hundred kilotonne hull(s), and you want to accompany it with about kilotonne extra hulls, buy extra docking clamps for your battle tender.

Otherwise, have a scaled down variant that just handles smaller hulls, that can accompany the primary tender.

 

[Condottiere]

Ticket Prices

1. Let's say, that the annual salary in America is eighty kilogreenbax, annually.

2. Average airline ticket price, four hundred greenbax.

3. That would be a ratio of two hundred to one.

4. Pilot earns six kilostarbux per month, ship mechanic one.

5. Average, fortyish kilostarbux per annum.

6. I'd say target would be two hundred starbux for a ticket, possibly inner system.

7. Let's say fifty pounds sterling for an average Ryanair ticket.

8. Maybe twenty five starbux for an intercontinental, orbital, or near satellite ticket.

9. Air/bus, to cover regional.

 

[Condottiere]

Ticket Prices

A. Let's say that the average business class ticket costs fifteen hundred greenbax.

B. On Terra, time and distance vary, usually in parallel.

C. Jumping, time is a constant, and distance varies.

D. Say, that any medium passage costs a kilostarbux, plus half a kilostarbux, per parsec.

E. Fifteen hundred to forty kay starbux is three and three quarter percent, and you probably would want to make that return ticket.

F. Add significant other and rugrat(s), and you probably could go on a holiday in another system, every five years or so.

 

[Condottiere]

Inspiration: Aliens (1986) | Modern Trailer | (HD) (4K)

Watch the Fan Trailer for Aliens - Starring Sigourney Weaver.

After floating in space for 57 years, Lt. Ripley's (Sigourney Weaver) shuttle is found by a deep space salvage team. Upon arriving at LV-426, the marines find only one survivor, a nine year old girl named Newt (Carrie Henn). But even these battle-hardened marines with all the latest weaponry are no match for the hundreds of aliens that have invaded the colony.

Did you know that Ripley's wearing Reeboks?

Worth another watch in four kay.

Some special effects are dated.

 

[Condottiere]

Ticket Prices

G. Low passage is supposed to be the cheapest way of travelling interstallarly.

H. Current listed price is seven hundred starbux for a monoparsec jump.

I. This one is a little tough, since very few people happened to like to be freeze dried, with a substantial chance of of staying that way when thawed.

J. I think the key might be the same as Mickey Dee's french fries.

K. Maintaining moisture.

 

[Condottiere]

Ticket Prices

L. The primary difference between ordinary freight and a low berth is, that this piece needs a special freezer.

M. Also, should be marked fragile.

N. You have to pay fifty kilostarbux for an additional piece of equipment, and provide it with one tenth of a power point.

O. At default, that would be three times more cost compared to a cargo hold, and double energy requirements.

P. We're going to assume part of is an accounting practice, in this case.

 

[Condottiere]

Ticket Prices

Q. There are going to be very few parents who'd cheerfully freeze dry their kids, to save a couple of bux.

R. There are going to be very few people who'd just pay for a six parsec stateroom high passage, and not seriously consider buying a starship for themselves.

S.

T. Unless you have a hot stock tip, or need to naysay a wedding, which requires your actual presence, you could afford two double triple parsec tickets.

U. Besides, very few commercial entities would have jump factor six starships, or operate such a route, regularly.

 

[Condottiere]

Ticket Prices

V. In a way, this reminds me of taxis, rather than cruise ships.

W. Or maybe Ubers.

X. Or (star)Lyfts.

Y. Subsidization requires some form of government intervention, and views transportation as a stimulus to economic growth.

Z. At least, regionally.

 

[Condottiere]

Inspiration: "The Eagle Obsession" – Promo (4K)

A special preview of the forthcoming feature-length documentary. Learn more at the film's homepage (https://eagledocumentary.com).

 

[Condottiere]

Starwarships: Star Wars ships but they get increasingly more ridiculous

As the title says, we'll look at Star Wars ships which get increasingly more silly.

There's got to be someway to leverage solar sails, and cells, together, in a way that makes sense within Traveller.

 

[Condottiere]

Starwarships: How Practical are Carriers in Space Warfare?

Spacedock delves into the much-debated topic of sci-fi carriers.

1. Yes.

2. Cut outs.

3. Blast doors.

4. Through deck hangars.

5. Catapult launchers.

6. Landing turtle.

7. External storage may depend on size.

8. Screening launches.

9. ... and then things got worse

 

[Condottiere]

Ticket Prices

1. Transstar is probably the equivalent of Aeroflot.

2. It is, or appears to be, the primary slush fund of the Solomani Party.

3. Within the Sphere, it is the largest transportation corporation.

4. Also, jobs for the boys.

5. Transstar’s passenger line has a reputation for efficient but somewhat unfriendly no-frills middle passage service.

6. Some of the older passenger liners are rather grim second-hand colony ships or demobilised troop transports purchased during an austerity period after the Solomani Rim War.

7. Transstar’s pride is its Taj Mahal jump-4 fast luxury liners, whose internal fittings and standard of service rivals any similar design in the Imperium, with prices to match.

8. Transstar offers a discounted travel rate (75% of fare) to Party members.

9. That's either three quarters of the standard passage cost, or a quarter thereof.

 

[Condottiere]

Ticket Prices

A. Now, you'd think, being a one party state means that the Solomani Party could have access to all sorts of funding sources within the Confederation.

B. Apparently not, if most of it comes from Transstar.

C. I think the distinction would be, primary fund of the central party organization, as opposed to that of their regional or planetary chapters.

D. Beyond the bare minimum, they may have been rather parsimonious with their contributions.

E. And the Central Committee may not have enough control, or may not really want to test it, if they could enforce increased tithing, if it's not existential.

F. But they could ensure some form of dominance in interstellar transportation.

 

[Condottiere]

Ticket Prices

G. It seems unlikely that Transstar would be active in insystem transportation, with the possible exception of major systems, such as Home, where economies of scale can be leveraged

H. Though if the local government is influential enough, they probably favour homegrown solutions and marginalize Transstar.

I. This would seem most demonstrable with regional blocks, that can promote, at least within their borders, their own interstellar transport lines, over that of Transstar.

J. This sort of indicates that space transport corporations need to be highly connected with local governments, in order to operate, which might only permit independent contractors with few, or only one, transport ships.

K. One benefit of having a single operator deal with pan Confederation interstellar traffic, is that it's easier to monitor it.