Amazing Ship Generator

[Grav_Moped]

And if it's really, really high volume, then there's probably not much room for a tramp freighter. Efficient systems are going to push out the little guy, welcome to (more or less) free market capitalism.

The tramps get the odd lots left over after everything else goes by kilofreighter. (It's an after-the-fact explanation for why the LBB2/LBB7 cargo tables don't generate enough to fill the hold of anything much larger than 600Td even on high-pop industrial worlds.)

 

[Condottiere]

It's not that it can't be done, but it's deliberately adding complicating factors.

We don't actually need to land dirtside, but let's say we have to.

We can bellyland, and take off, so why are we tailsitting?

We have to access the cargo hold.

We would have to deliberately design the spacecraft to allow us to do this easily, and presumably economically, in relationship to other designs.

I don't know what's changed in Mongoose High Guard 2.5.1; maybe I can find some rationale once I get a copy and read it.

 

[HanleyTucks]

We can bellyland, and take off, so why are we tailsitting?

As I said,

it all depends on the physics you're using in your Traveller universe. If the physics says they have to be VTVL then that's that, however inconvenient it is for the stevedores. If your physics says they don't have to be then they probably won't be.

For some reason, people here are sticklers for exactly where discussions go; it's not like the posting is rapid and voluminous enough that things easily get lost, but anyway, it is what it is. Well, this is general Traveller discussion, which means it encompasses all the many and various versions of the game - including those people have come up with themselves. Thus my comment above.

And so we come back to my original comment,

I wish it did tail-sitters, too, though hardly anyone does those.

It's a wish, not a complaint. Someone offering a free product or service gets to do it however they like, and we should be grateful, which I am. Still, it'd be nice to have the tail-sitters in there, too.

 

[Dragoner]

I have been doing a lot of ship designs to fill out the sections on my ship book, this is the most efficient design I can think of, and have not seen in any literature, truthfully one does not see any lifters described or how ships land. A 200 ton J1 M1 Merchant Trader from the Cepheus:



Those are stacks of 5 ton (2 TEU) containers, it can belly or tail land; either way a gantry is going to snatch those containers. One doesn't really see small ships at the big terminal, though, not from what I saw at the Port of Oakland, or Terminal Island down in LA.

I have others I have drawn up as well. I don't really see the efficiency one way or another, all are going to need equipment to be unloaded, there is no rolling a barrel down a gang plank, it's something I have never seen in real life. Even small fishing boats have hoists.

 

[kilemall]

I have been doing a lot of ship designs to fill out the sections on my ship book, this is the most efficient design I can think of, and have not seen in any literature, truthfully one does not see any lifters described or how ships land. A 200 ton J1 M1 Merchant Trader from the Cepheus:

View attachment 3087

Those are stacks of 5 ton (2 TEU) containers, it can belly or tail land; either way a gantry is going to snatch those containers. One doesn't really see small ships at the big terminal, though, not from what I saw at the Port of Oakland, or Terminal Island down in LA.

I have others I have drawn up as well. I don't really see the efficiency one way or another, all are going to need equipment to be unloaded, there is no rolling a barrel down a gang plank, it's something I have never seen in real life. Even small fishing boats have hoists.

This is where my C17 example applies- effectively roll-on roll-off vehicle and cargo pallet movement, requiring lighter support and time to do. That’s what bellylanding gets you. Big deal potentially in fast military/smuggling scenarios, and easier to deal with those rough D/E down ports.

 

[Dragoner]

This is where my C17 example applies- effectively roll-on roll-off vehicle and cargo pallet movement, requiring lighter support and time to do. That’s what bellylanding gets you. Big deal potentially in fast military/smuggling scenarios, and easier to deal with those rough D/E down ports.

No, I don't agree, it's never used anywhere except in a very narrow application, even the military uses 99.9% of it transport is by large containerized vessels, I watched them load up and go for Desert Storm. Essentially it is just a cutter or something.

 

[Spinward Flow]

Big deal potentially in fast military/smuggling scenarios, and easier to deal with those rough D/E down ports.

Not to sidetrack your point (too much) ... but I'm personally coming around to the notion that for "austere" landing zones (wilderness, etc.) you honestly don't want to be trying to find a parking space for a starship over 100-200 tons displacement (starting with landing gear ground pressure considerations at unprepared landing locations). In a lot of cases, what you're really wanting to use for deliveries to "austere" landing zones is going to be a small craft carrying a standardized container.

Basically ... these ...
Modular Cutter
Modular Cutter Module

The smaller 50 ton craft can "get into and land" at more locations (safely) than an entire 100+ ton starship can, and a Modular Cutter has a 60% transport fraction (30 ton module in a 50 ton small craft). Those modules can be "quickly exchanged" allowing the Modular Cutter (the remaining 20 tons of it) to effectively be operated like a sort of "sky crane" in locations that offer effectively no ground support whatsoever.

Ideally speaking, you're going to want a pilot for your starship and another pilot for your small craft ... with sufficient maneuvering power to "geostationary park in low orbit" over the landing zone and then use the Modular Cutter as an orbital interface shuttle for Modular Cutter Module(s) anywhere on a surface under atmosphere. At 4G acceleration, one way trips from the surface to low orbit can be made in minutes, for relatively rapid cycling between surface and orbit for fast delivery of containerized modules that are already loaded with everything you want to transfer (so just plug 'n' play).

So a 50 ton Modular Cutter basically gives a ship the ability to deliver cargo loaded into a 30 ton Modular Cutter Module to wilderness locations "safely" with a minimal amount of fuss or "exposure" for the parent starship. Depending on how covertly the delivery needs to be made, that can be an important consideration.

Case in point ... you can use a single Modular Cutter to deliver (one by one) ~8-12 Modular Cutter Modules outfitted as a sealed environment fire base for a platoon of mechanized infantry and their vehicles, capable of sustaining operations for a substantial amount of time. From a mercenary unit perspective, that's a rather non-trivial capability ... especially if that fire base can be "packed up and withdrawn" to an orbital rendezvous point in a matter of hours. Likewise, such a fire base could essentially be "mobilized" to another point on a surface, simply by use of one Modular Cutter gathering up the Modular Cutter Modules loaded with all the gear and setting up shop elsewhere as a new base of operations.

So in terms of "backwater" locations play, I'm seeing a LOT of upside to spending "an 54 tons for 30 tons of cargo capacity" (for the small craft plus pilot stateroom) in order to be "liberated" from being tied down to ground facilities at starports when it comes to making deliveries "out in the boonies" on planets. However, note that as the capacity for additional modules goes up (2, 3, 4, 5+ modules carried) the "pay an extra 24 tons" fraction for that capability goes down, since you're "reusing" the small craft to deliver all of those modules in a "one small craft, many modules" operational paradigm.

Note that this is where "external cargo capacity" can start becoming an important factor in starship economics, when you have "excess drive capacity" above what you "need" to reach a particular destination, so you can "load up" on external attachments (like Modular Cutter Modules loaded with "stuff") and use a Modular Cutter (or equivalent) to make surface to surface deliveries of that external cargo load.

 

[mike wightman]

A jump ship not in jump is wasting money.

For the large trade organisations you will make more money by having a shuttle service from a high port at the 100D limit, while the jump ship is a dispersed structure so it can load and unload cargo containers very quickly.

Drive maintenance while it is unloading/loading, replacing crew, and refueling then jump again.

PC scale trading does it differently. They often have to make planetfall to pick up the cargos the big boys left behinds or are small package deliveries or even speculative trade. So a streamlined ship is of some use.

 

[Grav_Moped]

We can bellyland, and take off, so why are we tailsitting?

That's sort of the point. The OTU (from LBB5 on) has artificial gravity. LBB 2 didn't say anything about it one way or the other.

You could have an ATU that doesn't include it. You could even have one with antigravity that doesn't have artificial gravity!

 

[Condottiere]

Let's try this.

If you want to recreate the romance of pulp cigar shaped rocket ships, that land and take off vertically, the hulls are pretty slim, and the engines tend to be at the bottom; you can see the inherent problems with this layout.

Next step is making the hull barrel shaped, and externalize the engines, or place the fuel and engines in the middle; easy access to the bottom cargo hold.

The final evolution would be a ball, so basically something along the lines of the mercenary cruiser.

 

[mike wightman]

Or you could be setting a game in the Expanse universe, for example. GURPS Terradyne, GURPS THS, 2d20 Infinity, Cyberpunk, Traveller 2300, all require engine thrust or spin to simulate gravity for the occupants of the spacecraft.

 

[Grav_Moped]

Let's try this.

If you want to recreate the romance of pulp cigar shaped rocket ships, that land and take off vertically, the hulls are pretty slim, and the engines tend to be at the bottom; you can see the inherent problems with this layout.

Next step is making the hull barrel shaped, and externalize the engines, or place the fuel and engines in the middle; easy access to the bottom cargo hold.

The final evolution would be a ball, so basically something along the lines of the mercenary cruiser.

Fuel tanks go above the cargo hold. Engines might be on the perimeter, even external (looking like real-world solid rocket boosters).

Nothing wrong with spherical hulls, of course. Prolate (stretched) spheroids would be a bit slicker, though. Oblate (squished) ones if you're not in a hurry to go up, or need to go sideways in-atmosphere too (bonus: if you look at them from the correct angle and squint a little, they're flying saucers...).

Props for mentioning the Happy Fun Ball ("Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball").

Edit to add:
Next project: Something like the Gazelle without the drop tanks, with a spherical hull. "Happy Fun Ball Jr."

 

[Dragoner]

I have a feeling we would be looking at what we have like with the Falcons, etc.. Probably a removable crew capsule in front, middle section cargo, fuel, and then engines. Remove the capsule and then unload, reload, fuel up, put the capsule back and blast off.

 

[kilemall]

No, I don't agree, it's never used anywhere except in a very narrow application, even the military uses 99.9% of it transport is by large containerized vessels, I watched them load up and go for Desert Storm. Essentially it is just a cutter or something.

Those are situations of air vs. ocean vessels, magnitudes of order of differences in power and fuel required to do what they do.

Even so, a good example are RO-RO ships- designed for rapid roll-on roll-off for vehicles, either commercial or military.

Roll-on/roll-off - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I would argue our classic Type A and Type R designs are the space going descendants of RO-ROs.

 

[kilemall]

Not to sidetrack your point (too much) ... but I'm personally coming around to the notion that for "austere" landing zones (wilderness, etc.) you honestly don't want to be trying to find a parking space for a starship over 100-200 tons displacement (starting with landing gear ground pressure considerations at unprepared landing locations). In a lot of cases, what you're really wanting to use for deliveries to "austere" landing zones is going to be a small craft carrying a standardized container.

Basically ... these ...
Modular Cutter
Modular Cutter Module

The smaller 50 ton craft can "get into and land" at more locations (safely) than an entire 100+ ton starship can, and a Modular Cutter has a 60% transport fraction (30 ton module in a 50 ton small craft). Those modules can be "quickly exchanged" allowing the Modular Cutter (the remaining 20 tons of it) to effectively be operated like a sort of "sky crane" in locations that offer effectively no ground support whatsoever.

Ideally speaking, you're going to want a pilot for your starship and another pilot for your small craft ... with sufficient maneuvering power to "geostationary park in low orbit" over the landing zone and then use the Modular Cutter as an orbital interface shuttle for Modular Cutter Module(s) anywhere on a surface under atmosphere. At 4G acceleration, one way trips from the surface to low orbit can be made in minutes, for relatively rapid cycling between surface and orbit for fast delivery of containerized modules that are already loaded with everything you want to transfer (so just plug 'n' play).

So a 50 ton Modular Cutter basically gives a ship the ability to deliver cargo loaded into a 30 ton Modular Cutter Module to wilderness locations "safely" with a minimal amount of fuss or "exposure" for the parent starship. Depending on how covertly the delivery needs to be made, that can be an important consideration.

Case in point ... you can use a single Modular Cutter to deliver (one by one) ~8-12 Modular Cutter Modules outfitted as a sealed environment fire base for a platoon of mechanized infantry and their vehicles, capable of sustaining operations for a substantial amount of time. From a mercenary unit perspective, that's a rather non-trivial capability ... especially if that fire base can be "packed up and withdrawn" to an orbital rendezvous point in a matter of hours. Likewise, such a fire base could essentially be "mobilized" to another point on a surface, simply by use of one Modular Cutter gathering up the Modular Cutter Modules loaded with all the gear and setting up shop elsewhere as a new base of operations.

So in terms of "backwater" locations play, I'm seeing a LOT of upside to spending "an 54 tons for 30 tons of cargo capacity" (for the small craft plus pilot stateroom) in order to be "liberated" from being tied down to ground facilities at starports when it comes to making deliveries "out in the boonies" on planets. However, note that as the capacity for additional modules goes up (2, 3, 4, 5+ modules carried) the "pay an extra 24 tons" fraction for that capability goes down, since you're "reusing" the small craft to deliver all of those modules in a "one small craft, many modules" operational paradigm.

Note that this is where "external cargo capacity" can start becoming an important factor in starship economics, when you have "excess drive capacity" above what you "need" to reach a particular destination, so you can "load up" on external attachments (like Modular Cutter Modules loaded with "stuff") and use a Modular Cutter (or equivalent) to make surface to surface deliveries of that external cargo load.

Reasonable perspective, in line with my thesis that most pirate ships should not be Corsairs or the like but fast small craft- get in, match course, threaten and receive fast transfer of goods, get out. At the most the Corsair is a mothership threatening with distance weapons, but not risking closing or getting into a time trap with hours lost in maneuvering while navies or LE can be closing.

 

[Condottiere]

In terms of ground pressure, the barrel configuration should be the most optimal, since it would spread the weight evenly and widely across the bottom.

 

[mike wightman]

A cone would be better still.

 

[mike wightman]

Something that just came to mind. Cranes and rigging.

During the age of the merchant explorer trade ships had to have their own rigging for cranes to load and unload cargo.

 

[mike wightman]

I would argue our classic Type A and Type R designs are the space going descendants of RO-ROs.

I could counter argue that they are more like the 57th century version of white van man - somewhat similar to self employed amazon delivery vans.

 

[Condottiere]

A cone would be a more pointed version of the flying saucer.