Solomani Confederation (Military)

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Airships

L. The lifting body has ten usable spaces out of fifty, at sixty five kilostarbux, and a speed band of high.

M. The blimp has ten usable spaces out of a hundred. at thirty kilostarbux, and a speed band of medium.

N. Drop the speed from high to medium, you get an extra five spaces, one of which would be usable, cost reduces to fifty eight and a half kilostarbux.

O. That would be 5'318.18181818 per usable space.

P. The advantages of the lifting body are half the volume for a given usable space, at a seventy eight percent premium.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Airships

Q. That would be what would be aimed for.

R. But, it seems obvious that's it more grav powered, with the balloon giving additional lift.

S. External crane would be used to carry large sized loads, upto the airship's designed cargo capacity.

T. Current heavy lift helicopters have a capacity of twenty tonnes.

U. I'm not sure you could trade air speed for additional cargo capacity, on the spot.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Airships

V. The above seems an interesting variant, with the balloon giving lift, and the sail providing direction and propulsion

W. Though it seems doubtful that you can squeeze much speed from it.

X. Too bad that wouldn't work with a solar sail.

Y. Since any secondary drive acceleration would, by a far margin, exceed that of the solar winds, with the sail likely being more of a drag.

Z. Though, onboard lasers could be used to bombard the sail, to give it an additional boost.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Airships

1. For airships, you have to wonder exactly what happens to range, if you just park the airship at a specific orbit, indefinitely.

2. Potentially, that's infinite, until something breaks, or you run out of food.

3. Presumably, you can harvest water from humidity, or a passing cloud.

4. Likely, for all aircraft, range has to include maintaining orbit against wind currents.

5. Updrafts, downdrafts, crosswinds, headwinds, tailwinds.

6. Which would include helping or hindering movement, which results in modifying range.

7. Time spent being exposed to those wind conditions, times wind speed.

8. If anchored by ropes to the ground, range modification would not apply.

9. Unless the motors are also actively counteracting the wind.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Airships

A. Performance customization isn't really worth it, since advancing a speed band doubles cost.

B. Lowering the speed band only benefits with a ten percent discount, and a ten percent space increase.

C. You might want speed to mitigate headwinds in adverse weather conditions.

D. With a default six thousand klix range, you could sacrifice three quarters of that, gaining you an additional thirty percent extra spaces.

E. That would change the cost to five kilostarbux per usable space for a lifting body.

F. 2'307.6923076923 starbux per usable space for a blimp.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Airships

G. Without a full ten usable spaces, cutting speed bands or fuel capacity isn't worth it, since you don't get the benefit of extra spaces.

H. Fuel efficiency directly affects cost, not spaces.

I. You could lower costs by thirty percent. if you lower range by seventy five percent.

J. Lifting body adjusted cost per usable space, forty five and a half hundred starbux.

K. Blimp, twenty one hundred starbux per usable space.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Airships

L. By using sails more commonly seen on waterborne vehicles, a light chassis can be propelled at some surprising speed.

M. However, the vehicle is utterly reliant on prevailing conditions and its maximum speed can never exceed that of the current wind.

N. This increases the Cost per Space by Cr200.

O. Tech Table TL/Speed 1-6/Very Slow 7-9/Slow 10+/Medium

P. Borrowed from Unpowered Vehicle chassis, but I think it applies if you switch off the engines, and attach a set of sails.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Airships

Q. Although it is rarely done intentionally, a vehicle can be weakened by using poorer quality materials or just tolerating shoddy construction.

R. A vehicle can decrease its Hull by -25%, by decreasing its Cost per Space by -25%.

S. This may be done once.

T. Together with the seventy five percent range reduction, that would discount the cost of a vehicle by fifty five percent.

U. Which, for a four usable spacer lifting body is twenty times cheaper than the default air/raft, at the same speed.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Airships

V. Twenty spaces would make a lifting body, or blimp, as large as the maximum size of a light ground vehicle.

W. Four usable spaces, about the capacity of a compact car.

X. Thirteen hundred times twenty, times forty five percent, is eleven and three tenths kilostarbux.

Y. Fully inflated, that would require a shipping space of ten tonnes.

Z. Deflated, two tonnes shipping space, plus a helium or hydrogen pump.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Airships

1. Assuming that daily rental rates for transportation, specifically personal, is point three or or point four percent of the purchase price.

2. That would be for eleven and three tenths kilostarbux, about thirty four to forty five starbux, for the compact lift/air.

3. Though, if the rental company had bought a fleet of them, the wholesale price would have been much lower.

4. One issue that's sort of hard to address in Traveller, is planned obsolescence.

5. It should be very obvious to everyone within that universe, what the technological upgrade path is.

6. With that knowledge, deliberate micro level upgrades would seem, for a rational actor, to be something to be disregarded.

7. If there is no demand for something shiny and newy, careful maintenance of rental transportation should stretch their useful lives just before major refurbishment is required.

8. Avoidance of taking such a depreciation hit, would be the impetus of disposing the rental transportation on the second hand market.

9. I'm not sure when quirks start appearing for Vehicles, but presumably, that's a decade's worth.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Airships

A. For customization of airships, twenty spaces becomes the minimum size.

B. Four hull points are easily calculated to drop to three.

C. Anything smaller still would drop a hull point, though for game purposes, one would assume you still need a minimum of one.

D. That would make ten spaces the absolute minimum if you weaken the hull.

E. I would guess that would be the equivalent of an open frame for other chassis types.

F. Not actually an option for airships, since it doesn't make it go up a speed band.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Airships

G. At the other end of the stick, two hundred usable spaces should be enough for cattle class in a regional airliner.

H. Technological level seven would seem internal combustion engine.

I. Technological level eight would seem an electric engine.

J. Speed is the same as technological level seven, so besides increased range, odds are that the propellers, presumably, or ducted fans, are going to be more silent.

K. Regional should be one to two hours, so at maximum speed of three hundred klix, destinations should be about five hundred klix.