Mithras
Banded Mongoose
Jumpng off from the thread on the Heavy Freighter, why the fascination with designing and deckplaning lots of smallish cargo haulers and scout ships, when the real workhorses of the Third Imperium get ignored. From a design stand-point I findthesetypes of vessels more challenging and more fun. Years ago I remember trying to design some of these for CT, but never got as far as deckplans.
I'd like to see these:
Luxury Liner, 3000 tons. Regina to Capital or to Deneb, or running a wide circular route to return to start point. JUmp 3 to avoid all those crappy worlds. Year long voyages.
Meat Wagon, 1000 tons. Colony ship used to open up new worlds. Hundreds of low berths, for people and animal embryos. Cargo space for building materials, shelters and seed.
Tug. 600/800 tons. Large in-system tug for work on derelicts, salvage, asteroids and space station construction.
Rescue. 400 tons. Non-starship for insystem rescue, based at every starport class B and A. Fitted with emergency lowberths, wide airlocks for docking, firefighting gear, salvage and rescue gear, onboard rescue vehicles, extensive medical facilities. Ambulances to ferry injured back to mainworldwhileescue ship stays on station.
Mining Barge. 1000 ton. Big belter baseship, 10 mining lasers, vast ore bays, recareasfor belters, hanger bay for visitors, extraaccomodation. Processing area, geology labs, workshops, bays for mining buggies.
Construction Barge 2000 ton . Carries pre-made parts to a location, andthen faricatesthem to make space stations, drilling rigs, com-stations, scientific observatories etc. Large cargo bays. Accom for construction workers, with EVA bays and lots of rec space. Plenty of robot arms and controls, drone bays and hangers for launches and other small craft.
Mining Platform. 5000 tons. As mentioned in Beltstrike! for CT. If you've seen The Abyss, then you know what this is andhow muc h fun you can have on board it.
Long-Duration Shuttle. 100 tons. In system, most travel will take days, and the typical small craft with airliner style couch arrangement cannot cope. For constant transfer of people to another world, for mining or other purposes, in system, a 100 or 200 ton craft fitted with cabins can do that job.
Tanker. High ports may use a big 1000 or 2000 ton tanker to dip into the local GasGiant and run back with fuel to fill its huge supply tanks. I'd like to see a deckplan for this - the crew compartments, rec areas, lack of J-drive, maintenance, fuel lab and access to fuel pumping machinery. What if something gets scopped onboard? Some psionic floater that causes hallucinations and forces the crew to commit suicide. THen the PCs with a few NPCs turn up to rescue to derelict tanker...
I'm sure there are many other work-horse concepts out there ...
I'd like to see these:
Luxury Liner, 3000 tons. Regina to Capital or to Deneb, or running a wide circular route to return to start point. JUmp 3 to avoid all those crappy worlds. Year long voyages.
Meat Wagon, 1000 tons. Colony ship used to open up new worlds. Hundreds of low berths, for people and animal embryos. Cargo space for building materials, shelters and seed.
Tug. 600/800 tons. Large in-system tug for work on derelicts, salvage, asteroids and space station construction.
Rescue. 400 tons. Non-starship for insystem rescue, based at every starport class B and A. Fitted with emergency lowberths, wide airlocks for docking, firefighting gear, salvage and rescue gear, onboard rescue vehicles, extensive medical facilities. Ambulances to ferry injured back to mainworldwhileescue ship stays on station.
Mining Barge. 1000 ton. Big belter baseship, 10 mining lasers, vast ore bays, recareasfor belters, hanger bay for visitors, extraaccomodation. Processing area, geology labs, workshops, bays for mining buggies.
Construction Barge 2000 ton . Carries pre-made parts to a location, andthen faricatesthem to make space stations, drilling rigs, com-stations, scientific observatories etc. Large cargo bays. Accom for construction workers, with EVA bays and lots of rec space. Plenty of robot arms and controls, drone bays and hangers for launches and other small craft.
Mining Platform. 5000 tons. As mentioned in Beltstrike! for CT. If you've seen The Abyss, then you know what this is andhow muc h fun you can have on board it.
Long-Duration Shuttle. 100 tons. In system, most travel will take days, and the typical small craft with airliner style couch arrangement cannot cope. For constant transfer of people to another world, for mining or other purposes, in system, a 100 or 200 ton craft fitted with cabins can do that job.
Tanker. High ports may use a big 1000 or 2000 ton tanker to dip into the local GasGiant and run back with fuel to fill its huge supply tanks. I'd like to see a deckplan for this - the crew compartments, rec areas, lack of J-drive, maintenance, fuel lab and access to fuel pumping machinery. What if something gets scopped onboard? Some psionic floater that causes hallucinations and forces the crew to commit suicide. THen the PCs with a few NPCs turn up to rescue to derelict tanker...
I'm sure there are many other work-horse concepts out there ...
