Starport safety system

[Hemdian]

I don't know if anyone else has come up with this but an idea just popped into my head:

With the unreliable nature of some tramp traders (PC ships are often under maintained and over shot at) the idea of letting them try and land at major starports on high population worlds is enough to give many a Port Warden a nervous twitch. So rich worlds can install a repulsor in each landing pad, the same technology that some ships use to defend against missile attack. As the ship comes in to land it lines up with the repulsor beam which guides it down the final leg of the descent and helps prevent crashes. And on take off the repulsor beam can boost the initial ascent.

Any thoughts?

 

[Enoki]

I would expect a system more like the one used with ships today. I was reading an article in the Wall Street Journal about how the Iranians were reflagging their ships to get them into US and Western ports. There is a standards organization (the IMO) http://www.imo.org/Pages/home.aspx that registers every commercial ship over 300 tons. The Journal was saying that it was possible to back track the Iranian's move via the permanently marked hull numbers from the IMO.

I would expect some similar system to be in place in Traveller. That is, without making extensive efforts a ship would be known as to its orgins. While small ships might get away with moving under the 'radar' anything big is going to be found out in pretty short order.

What I would think small, "questionable," ship captains would do is land at some secondary or tertiary port rather than a large main one on more advanced worlds. This could even be a secondary world or satellite in the system rather than the main world (this is why it is important to have a complete system map in some cases).

 

[far-trader]

I think the old Dragon article on a starport included the idea of repulsor(and tractor?) fields for both landing and lifting as an emergency backup. If the ship drives failed or the ship tried to deviate from the path the repulsor would boost it away (or the tractor would bring it down on the path?).

Having reread the Med Ship stories recently that's how landing fields worked in it too. Ships could make emergency landings but generally they left the landing and lifting to the spaceport grid, which could just as easily smash the ship or fling it away like a toy iirc. I think it reached out to orbit but not much beyond.

 

[stealth]

I read the same Dragon article.

It was a world that had a nuclear war. There was a 100,000 ton star-cruiser in orbit.

Anyway, my thoughts are the tractor/repulsor beams don't have the range to allow a semi-streamlined ship to be safely landed - they can't grab things in orbit.

If they could, you wouldn't need streamlined small craft, and there would be no need for a high-port at all. Everything would just be on a tractor/repulser conveyor.

 

[sabredog]

Ships with iffy landing safety are directed to the orbital docks IMTU - if the starport doesn't have one, then they aren't likely to worry about such ships anyway; they are happy to any ships stopping by at all.

But I also have landing tonnage restrictions (5kt limit) and anything larger needs a starport equipped with a heavy tractor/pressor system (similar to a repulsor but it doesn't just "snap" at something coming into it to deflect it away , but stays on and provides a cushioning effect) and an emergency reinforced pad large enough to handle something the size of a couple of aircraft carriers.

Once the field is off the ship is pretty much going to be there for a while so its only an emergency system and very few Type A ports have them. The big boys and emergencies that don't require landing are always directed away from, or to the orbital facilities where tugs handle them. Moons are also used for landing the big ships, if again, they absolutely have to land for some reason.

 

[BytePro]

Never used this IMTU, but given the masses and velocity of ships and the fact I often had starports and cities adjacent each other, this makes a lot of sense (er, and, obviously my layouts didn't)...

Of course, the thread title beggars the questions - what happens when this system goes awry?! :devil:

 

[sabredog]

Never used this IMTU, but given the masses and velocity of ships and the fact I often had starports and cities adjacent each other, this makes a lot of sense (er, and, obviously my layouts didn't)...

Of course, the thread title beggars the questions - what happens when this system goes awry?! :devil:

There's a big hole in the ground and the players either A) roll up new characters, or B) after much frantic dice rolling to barely bring a crashing ship into some semblance of a controlled crash-landing they have a new adventure being chased by insurance agents, angry mobs, and the guy whose brand new ship they just scratched.

I have done many, many variations of both and much hilarity has always ensued. ("Oh great, another planet we can never go back to!")

 

[sabredog]

I'm going to post in the Research Station section here my house rules for the Tractor/Pressor Arrays I have IMTU. The TL might be low for some, but its the same as the Replusors come in at in HG so I figure its about right.

They can be mounted in turret or bay-like (which IMTU are really just really big turrets anyway) for use by tugs and other things. Extra arrays and added powerplants dedicated to their use is generally how I use them in tugs and bulk haulers for in-system cargo. The same would work on the ground to get enough power to get what you need for a given ship landing emergency.

I also have them on some worlds to "catch" incoming mass driver packets from mining operations on low grav, thin atmo worlds. The incoming packet beacon is picked up and the arrays come online. If more power is needed then the operators (or computers) fore up extra power plants or switch on enough arrays to add up to the needed tonnage to be caught and guided in.

I'll put it in the Research section for your consideration. I think I got the idea form some article in the dim past, but have refined it a lot since.

 

[sabredog]

OK, here's the link for the tractor/pressor array:

http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=25154

 

[scubamatt]

Hmmm..in my games, the starport is almost always located away from the major population centers, since displacement is the best passive defense against accidents. The lower the TL/population on a given world, the more willing they are to have the starport close to town (because they lack the necessary infrastructure to transport goods to/from a more distant landing site).

On high pop/high TL worlds, no (non-local) ship over 100 tons gets to land under its own pilot/power. They park in orbit at a customs station, and then if they must land on the surface they are piloted/guided down by a certified pilot/crew provided by the Port Authority. This idea came from the old sailing ship days where a harbor pilot always came aboard to guide your ship thru the channels to the proper berth, etc. it also gives another layer of security vs the odd terrorist who wants to splash his ship into the heart of the Capitol (etc).

This encourages ships with 'questionable' cargo or passengers to land at more primitive/distant ports, to 'avoid any Imperial entanglements' or nosy customs agents. Regular transfer or goods and passengers is accomplished through government regulated insystem shuttle services.

 

[BytePro]

That all sounds imminently rational...

However, IMTU, I like my pilots to be allowed to land (or crash) on their own - and governments and safety only get in the way of commerce in exceptional situations.

Inter-system terrorism is not really an issue IMTU, though if someone chooses to use a starship as a weapon there is not much to totally prevent it (at least as a kamikaze or automated attack).

My location of starports in and near population centers also beggars an insanity plea... but then I think of RW installations where greed (and perhaps just sheer stupidity) has done identical things when it comes to airliners and ships (like LNG tankers) and support facilities (refineries and fuel depots). o:

 

[E.D.Quibell]

IMTU traffic control is king in High Pop systems.

If you deviate from the assigned flight plan they shout at you. If you contiune to deviate from the assigned flight plan they tell you to stop and assign a port pilot to bring you in, and charge you for the priveralge.

If you don't respond or continue to devaite from the assigned flight plan they shoot you until your debree is such a size that it won't cause any damamge.

If you don't want to be shot you stop.

However as repulsors come in at TL10 abd that's the High TL IMTU I'm now going to put them in the Highports. Thanks Peter

Best regards,

Ewan

 

[whartung]

IMTU traffic control is king in High Pop systems.

Yea, basically this -- and fire trucks.

Vehicles are going to lawn dart in to the tarmac for any number of reasons. Mostly accidental.

The detail that seems be neglected here is that the PILOTS are motivated to not muck this up. They're motivated to keep their ships in some state of reasonable repair so that they can land the ship, not breath vacuum in space, not have their souls lost in the N-Dimensionless void of Jump space, etc. Plus, the ship is basically expensive to fix and replace if it happens to become a crumpled heap of burning rubble.

There was a blurb on the radio talking about the 25th anniversary of the Cerritos crash here in So. Cal. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeroméxico_Flight_498 -- what a terrible picture, not the quality just the content. Awful.). As a consequence they required small planes to add transponders, as this turned out to be a problem with traffic control and awareness rather than some one being a bad pilot, mechanical problem, or heart attack or something (clearly pilots were involved, but they shouldn't have been in a situation where this could have happened in the first place).

So I don't think some wacky contraptions at the Starport are going to help much to keep ships from falling out the air over residential areas (and if they fall out of the air over the Starport, well, that why they make them out of concrete...and have fire trucks).

 

[Dragoner]

I think the old Dragon article on a starport included the idea of repulsor(and tractor?) fields for both landing and lifting as an emergency backup. If the ship drives failed or the ship tried to deviate from the path the repulsor would boost it away (or the tractor would bring it down on the path?).

Having reread the Med Ship stories recently that's how landing fields worked in it too. Ships could make emergency landings but generally they left the landing and lifting to the spaceport grid, which could just as easily smash the ship or fling it away like a toy iirc. I think it reached out to orbit but not much beyond.

Yes, I remember this in the Leinster, one even with a decripit free trader type merchant ship. Definitely the repulsor technology would be handy here.

 

[aramis]

I think it would be a paired Tractor and Repulsor. The tractor in case they go off course, and the repulsor to prevent a crash, and the pairing to hold them in place.

Not one per pad, but probably one installation per cluster of pads.

In such a situation, you aim down the central path, then they move you over to the actual landing pad/bay/puddle.

 

[sabredog]

http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=25154

Like this.

 

[Hemdian]

So, here's another question (tangential to this thread): What is the typical failure mode for an M-drive IYTU? By that I mean, typically when an M-drive fails does it suddenly cut out completely or fade out over a relatively short span of time?

As most ships, even streamlined ones, do not have wings that can provide lift, if a ship is coming in to land has a sudden cutout it's going to immediately and catastrophically drop like a rock ... loosing forward momentum and gaining downward momentum until it's accelerating straight down into the ground. But in the fade out style it's going to have a limited chance to glide in to a potentially less catastrophic crash landing.

 

[stealth]

So, here's another question (tangential to this thread): What is the typical failure mode for an M-drive IYTU? By that I mean, typically when an M-drive fails does it suddenly cut out completely or fade out over a relatively short span of time?

As most ships, even streamlined ones, do not have wings that can provide lift, if a ship is coming in to land has a sudden cutout it's going to immediately and catastrophically drop like a rock ... loosing forward momentum and gaining downward momentum until it's accelerating straight down into the ground. But in the fade out style it's going to have a limited chance to glide in to a potentially less catastrophic crash landing.

It all depends on the pilots die roll.

 

[scubamatt]

I would say fade out, usually. This is for cinematic/play reasons mostly, as it gives a little more time for the crew to panic/try something/blame-the-engineer before things go completely out of their control. Out of control in a game is bad, except in very small doses. Complex systems usually have all sorts of redundant/secondary/auxiliary backups that try to compensate for the primary failing. It is these systems (dying one by one) that give the crew some extra time and opportunities to change certain death into a brutal but survivable crash landing. (Or simply escape in the life boats, if they are those kind of 'heroes'.)

Now fade out isn't a quiet event, mind you. There should be klaxons, flashing lights, smoke, sparks, things shorting out and so forth, while the ship's computer reminds you over and over again about the current (decreasing) distance/time to impact, and the traffic control guy changes his tone from arrogant to worried to freaking out.

Alternatively, there can be a single, sharp explosion of small to moderate size and the drive goes dead on the spot. Moment of stunned silence...THEN the klaxons and such start. This is most likely because of sabotage, or the crew's earlier decision to buy/install a cheaper/used component to save money. If the explosion is in the correct spot, it disables the backup systems in the same event, so your crew has very little chance to do much at all before the ship goes down. I would use this very sparingly, again because it takes the entire situation out of the player's control, which is often poorly received. I'd allow each player character to make a single attempt to do something useful, and not allow them any time to discuss it among themselves. Quick thinking/creative/heroic attempts get a bonus to the roll, in my games.

 

[aramis]

So, here's another question (tangential to this thread): What is the typical failure mode for an M-drive IYTU? By that I mean, typically when an M-drive fails does it suddenly cut out completely or fade out over a relatively short span of time?

Both... normal failure modes (including Inop DP depletion) up to several dozen seconds of decreasing utility if still powered.

Unpowered, 1d6 seconds max.

Catastrophic (Destroyed Mishap, Destroyed DP depletion): under a second, effectively immediate