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Brainstorming Boughene/Regina (SM 1904)

Since you @Grav_Moped objected to the idea of using LBB2.77 drives in a 100 ton hull at TL=9 to achieve Jump-6 performance with L-Hyd drop tanks as detailed over here for the Canary Run ... I figured I might as well take a second stab at the issue using a TL=12 200 ton hull from LBB5.80 with LBB2.81 standard drives installed into it (Power Plant-6 is an absolute killer for fuel on small ships).

The biggest problem is that Jump-6 plus Power Plant-6 in a 200 ton hull requires 120 tons of jump fuel plus 60 tons of power plant fuel. That's 180 tons of fuel in a 200 ton hull if all the fuel is internal ... and you still need room for the drives themselves, bridge, computer model/6 ... crew staterooms (pilot, engineers, medic required ... navigator, steward, gunners optional) ... and there's just no way to make everything fit internally.

But if you use L-Hyd drop tanks to push some/all of the jump fuel requirement external to the hull, it can be made to work. :unsure:



So ... yet another counter-proposal. 🚀


LBB2.81 ... 200 ton TL=12 J6 Business Courier
  • 200 ton custom hull, atmospheric streamlining = MCr22
  • Jump-F (6), Maneuver-F (6), Power Plant-F (6) = 35+11+19 = 65 tons, MCr132 :oops: (EP:12 in LBB5.80)
  • Fuel Purification Plant: 200 ton capacity = 6 tons, MCr0.032 (LBB5.80, p27 and p36)
    • Refines 1 ton of unrefined gas fuel per 1 minute (120+60=180 minutes/3 hours total with L-Hyd drop tank installed)
    • Refines 1 ton of water fuel per 10 minutes (1200+600=1800 minutes/30 hours total with L-Hyd drop tank installed)
  • 60 tons of internal fuel (power plant only, 4 weeks/28 days endurance, 24 weeks/168 days powered down)
    • 120 ton external L-Hyd drop tank (Cr130,000 new/empty, Cr12,000 reuse/empty)
      Drive performance reduced to Jump-3, Maneuver-3, Power Plant-3 while drop tank is retained.
  • Triple Turret: Sandcaster, Pulse Laser, Missile = 1 ton, MCr2.5 (EP:1 in LBB5.80)
  • Bridge = 20 tons, MCr1
  • Computer model/6 = 7 tons, MCr55 (EP:5 in LBB5.80)
  • Staterooms: 4 = 16 tons, MCr2 (20 person/days life support per stateroom)
    • Crew (4): Pilot-2/Gunnery-2, Engineering-1 (chief), Engineering-1, Medic-1
  • Cargo: 25 tons (5 tons mail vault, 20 tons cargo)
Total tonnage = 65+6+60+1+20+7+16+25 = 200 tons (wasted space: 0 tons)
Total cost (first in class) = MCr214.662 (including new L-Hyd drop tank construction cost), 48 weeks construction time (LBB A5, p33)
10% discount volume production cost = MCr193.1958, 44 weeks construction time

Recurring overhead expenses per jump on a 12 day cycle on the Canary Run:
  • L-Hyd drop tank rental: Cr12,000
  • Berthing Fees: Cr100
  • Life Support: Cr100 per person per day / Cr4800 per 12 days
  • Crew Salaries: Cr16,175 per 28 days / Cr6933 per 12 days
Total costs per jump = Cr23,833 per 12 days

Revenue generation per jump:
  • 5 tons mail: Cr25,000
  • Cargo Transport: Cr1000 per ton (max Cr20,000)
Net profits per 12 days = Cr1167 profit (mail only, no cargo) to Cr21,167 profit (mail, 20 tons cargo)
Net profits per 12 days with 50% subsidy rake on revenues = Cr11,333 loss (mail only, no cargo) to Cr1333 loss (mail, 20 tons of cargo)


Basically a high priced "business jet" type of fast transport that isn't expected to make much of a direct profit on starship operations (and certainly not enough to earn back the construction cost over 40 years).

Although there shouldn't be much trouble filling the cargo hold (20 tons of cargo would be pathetically easy to come by reliably on the Boughene to Regina route of the Canary Run) ... even with full manifests of mail and cargo to transport, annual revenue generation on 30 jump cycles of 12 days each (so 360 days, just in time to return to home base for annual overhaul maintenance!) would deliver a maximum of Cr440,374 in profit per year after all expenses (including annual overhaul maintenance) have been paid for if the ship is not operating under a subsidy. With a subsidy ... ship operations are simply a money pit, generating deficits on every jump.

So basically you buy and crew one of these ships to lose money (just like most business jets), since Cr440,374 per year amounts to a maximum of MCr17,614,960 over 40 years ... which is less than 10% the cost of construction for even a volume production version. Therefore, the return on investment with ships of this class would have to come from transport of high value speculative cargoes and the privileged information carried in the mail vault that would lead to economic deals and opportunities "external" to the operation of the ships on the Canary Run themselves.

The 20 ton cargo bay (not including the 5 ton mail vault) is a useful size for transport of high value cargoes, up to and including "modular offices" for business executives (4 staterooms plus 1 workshop is enough for 2 business associates, 2 secretary/stewards and a shared office space workshop that the business associates can each use during time in jump to continue working while en route). I figure that such 20 ton "modular offices" would be a relatively simple pre-fabricated design that can be rented by persons of sufficient means (and social standing and security clearance) to be loaded into the cargo bay of a Canary Run courier for a "fast business trip" between Boughene and Regina so as to facilitate coordination between interests at Boughene and the subsector capital.

20 ton hull, configuration: 4 close structure = MCr1.2 (LBB5.80)
4 staterooms = MCr2
1 workshop = MCr0.5
Total cost (first in class): MCr3.7
80% discount volume production: MCr2.96

Alternate configurations would be available, of course, but that gives you an idea of the variety of possible items to transport that can make a cargo bay more than just merely a cargo bay. Just slide the "modular office" into the cargo bay and you're ready for transport. The "modular office" can also continue to be used at the destination until your business dealings have been completed, at which time the "modular office" can be loaded right back onto another Canary Run ship for the return trip.

Note that a similar setup can be used to transport personnel who want to maintain a low profile and need cover stories (such as intelligence operatives) as well as other adventure hook scenarios.



The reason for the Maneuver-6 in addition to the Jump-6, Power Plant-6 is because the difference between Maneuver-2 and Maneuver-6 is the difference between a Maneuver-B drive (3 tons, MCr8) and a Maneuver-F drive (11 tons, MCr24) ... which all things considered is a pretty minimal/marginal difference in a J6 Courier ship (that is designed for SPEED rather than for direct mercantile PROFIT). Unlike LBB5.80 custom maneuver drives, with LBB2.81 standard drives it is possible to "pile on" the maneuver capacity relatively cheaply (in terms of tonnage needed).

From a LBB5.80 USP perspective, the ship would have a standard Agility=3 powering the pulse laser (EP=1) and model/6 computer (EP=5) ... but an Emergency Agility=6 if the pulse laser is powered down (which in a Break Off By Acceleration situation would be an excellent idea to avoid an unwanted intercept).
1x TL=12 Sandcaster = 1 battery code: 3
1x TL=12 Pulse Laser = 1 battery code: 1
1x TL=12 Missile = 1 battery code: 1
Hardly a scary prospect until you realize that model/6 computer does extremely nasty things with to-hit rolls (offensively and defensively) under LBB5.80 combat rules. LBB2.81 starship combat rules, particularly with extensive computer programs running, are ... different. :unsure:



So ... there you have it, @Grav_Moped.
If you didn't like my 100 ton TL=9 LBB2.77 version (which was about 1/3rd the price of this beast) ... here's an alternative using LBB2.81 for you that relies on L-Hyd drop tanks and a fuel purification plant to make it almost break even economical in a paid off condition.
Yep, drop tanks make a big difference. It's a nifty design -- and for the Boughene-Regina run, the 6G maneuver drive is particularly useful: each world is a gas giant's satellite with a correspondingly deep gravity well and distant Jump Limit.

If you want to get really cute, make it 199Td (the hull's custom anyhow) and you don't "need" the engineering crew. (Well, the rules say you don't, but this thing's rocking a full set of Size F drives and probably should have a couple of techs back there despite the rules.)

For my own reasons*, I'm still going with the Israfel-class 400Td courier in my narrative, but others using this thread for ideas about Boughene as a setting should definitely consider it.

------
* Narratively, I needed Jump-6 without drop tanks because it'd be really awkward for the PC party to have to reroute such that each Jump layover point would be able to supply drop tanks.

In-universe explanation:
The Israfels were proof-of-concept on the Canary Run, with the expectation that the Duke of Regina would rapidly replace them with state-of-the-art couriers under his control and on his dime (which he did). However, they were really built for the Pretoria Doomsday Alert Shortcut (the Canary Run was just the official justification/pretext to get them funded), and for that they needed to be able to operate without external logistical support.
 
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My thoughts for what they are worth.

How many other moons are around the gas giant? How many other planets, dwarf planets, comets and asteroids exist in the system as a whole?

A TLD world with a type A starport can easily exploit all the resources present in a star system, so raw materials for building stuff is not an issue.

So the next question becomes - who originally colonised the system and how? At what point did the construction of the space station begin? Is it one station or many?

Where and how are the following catered for:
industry
agriculture
habitation
recreation

TL D - no need for spin gravity, a maneuver drive can provide radiation shielding from the gas giant and orbit adjustment as necessary.
Revisting this thread after... wow, it's been a while hasn't it?

Agriculture: Most of it is on-station, but one of the things that came up in conversation about how one would go about defending the station was the rule in the Fifth Frontier War game that worlds without atmospheres basically had to surrender if the defending fleet was defeated (no possibility of an insurgency or something like that). Now, a world with a corrosive atmosphere isn't really going to help much here, but Komesh (the gas giant) has a couple of other moons besides Boughene that might be slightly less inhospitable.

Thus, the Food Mines on all three moons. Vast underground farms (hydroponic and otherwise), that in emergencies serve as "bomb shelters" for the station's non-combatant population.
 
This thread is just a spot to gather my thoughts (and whatever input anyone wishes to contribute) about Boughene Station.
I'll probably consolidate it all into a parallel IMTU-annotated version of the Wiki entry at some point, as I did for Collace/District 268.

Boughene/Regina (SM 1904) (trav wiki entry)
A8B3531-D
First: According to wiki, the planet's UWP is irrelevant since almost all of the 600,000 residents live on a space station in orbit around it. That's a pretty big space station (approximately 3 million Td). This space station is at least 200 years old.

Second: According to the Travellerworlds procedurally-generated description of the stellar system, Boughene is a satellite of a gas giant, in Orbit 0 at 0.26AU.
I think this puts it inside the M1V star's 100D limit! (Someone with better math/astronomy skills, please check this because I'm probably wrong.)
Due to a glitch in Travellerworlds (or, more likely, something on my end) the "place mainworld as a satellite" preference was inadvertently selected when I checked it.
Boughene does NOT come up as a satellite of a gas giant in TW if that option is not selected. It is tidally locked to the star (a "one face" world), though.

And its orbit is within the 100D limit of the star!

This means that plot points for my PbP setting that relied on Boughene being in Komesh's gravity well still work, except it's the star's gravity well rather than Komesh's that cause the relevant effects.
 
Due to a glitch in Travellerworlds (or, more likely, something on my end) the "place mainworld as a satellite" preference was inadvertently selected when I checked it.
Boughene does NOT come up as a satellite of a gas giant in TW if that option is not selected.
Ok, I think I've settled on it being an ATU version of the Boughene system.
Except, I'm having issues with TravellerWorlds (almost certainly on my end, still working on it and will update) and can't reproduce the glitch that caused it to come out that way.
 
Found the issue.
There are [save] [close] [reset] buttons on the Preferences page -- it's just that based on how they're grouped, they looked as though they were only applicable to the Map Colours section of preferences, not the whole page.
They apply to the entire set of preferences!

I now can provide instructions on how to generate the non-default, My-TU version of the Boughene system used in this thread:

1. Link to TravellerWorlds from the bottom of the drop-down sidebar you get when clicking on Boughene on TravellerMap.
The sidebar appears as a pop-up under the Search block. Expand it by clicking the down-arrow at the bottom of it.
It's the underlined part of the text block at the bottom:
Generate World Map
c/o Traveller5 World Builder

2. Now that you're on TravellerWorlds, select View in the top menu bar, then from the drop-down menu, select "Your Preferences".

3. In the first block of options, select "Main world is placed as a satellite".

4. Over to the right, there are three stacked buttons: [save] [close] [reset]. Select "Save".

5. Return to the View button in the top menu bar, and select "Full Star System".

This is the My-TU version of Boughene. Save it if you want, or remember this process next time you want to see it again.

6. When you're done: Go back into Your Preferences, then over to the three buttons on the right and select "reset". If you don't, every star system you look at on TravellerMaps afterwards will have its mainworld set as a gas giant satellite...
 
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1. Link to TravellerWorlds from the bottom of the drop-down sidebar you get when clicking on Boughene on TravellerMap.
The sidebar appears as a pop-up under the Search block. Expand it by clicking the down-arrow at the bottom of it.
It's the underlined part of the text block at the bottom:
Generate World Map
c/o Traveller5 World Builder

2. Now that you're on TravellerWorlds, select View in the top menu bar, then from the drop-down menu, select "Your Preferences".

3. In the first block of options, select "Main world is placed as a satellite".

4. Over to the right, there are three stacked buttons: [save] [close] [reset]. Select "Save".

5. Return to the View button in the top menu bar, and select "Full Star System".
For me, these instructions do not work.
I need to use an extra step.

1. Link to TravellerWorlds from the bottom of the drop-down sidebar you get when clicking on Boughene on TravellerMap.
The sidebar appears as a pop-up under the Search block. Expand it by clicking the down-arrow at the bottom of it.
It's the underlined part of the text block at the bottom:
Generate World Map
c/o Traveller5 World Builder

2. Now that you're on TravellerWorlds, select View in the top menu bar, then from the drop-down menu, select "Your Preferences".

3. In the first block of options, select "Main world is placed as a satellite".

4. Over to the right, there are three stacked buttons: [save] [close] [reset]. Select "Save".
4a. Close Tab.
4b. Return to the TravellerMap and choose Generate World Map c/o Traveller5 World Builder anew. This will generate a new star system with the saved preferences.

5. Return to the View button in the top menu bar, and select "Full Star System".
This then gets me to a result that looks like this:
1IPaS6f.png


Note that according to the Boughene Wiki Page the primary star has a jump shadow of 0.475 AU (basically reaching out into Decimal Orbit: 1.279) ... so Komesh and its planets are "pretty well shielded" from incoming traffic (several hours of advance warning before they can reach Boughene Station after breakout). This also means that Maneuver Drives are "more important" for quick(er) transits to jump points in the Boughene System than they might be in other star systems, since the 100+ diameter clearance is so much further away from Boughene Station than is typical for a lot of star systems (so low power drives spend a LONG TIME maneuvering in this system).

Although Boughene Station itself is the most populated "world" in the system, it is by no means the ONLY population center within the Boughene system.
Population: 1 = 1
Population: 2 = 0
Population: 3 = 3
Population: 4 = 9 :oops:
Population: 5 = 1 (Boughene Station)

There are even some Population: 0 worlds with governments (!) and law levels (!) and even tech levels (!) for them, which presumably means that there are 1-9 people on those worlds (real hardy pioneers, researchers or resource extractors!) living on the edge of civilization. However, some ~90% of the star system's population resides at Boughene Station, definitely making it the "hub" settlement for a system with lots of scattered outposts.

From Boughene Station (in orbit around Komesh), the question of "maneuver or micro-jump?" for delivery transfers to other solar orbits breaks down like so:
Primary Orbit: 0-6 = 1G+ Maneuver
Primary Orbit: 7 = 2G+ Maneuver (else micro-jump)
Primary Orbit: 8 = 3G+ Maneuver (else micro-jump)
Primary Orbit: 9 = 5G+ Maneuver (else micro-jump)
Primary Orbit: 10-11 = Micro-jump (or take longer than 8 days of maneuvering!)

Since Orbit 9 contains TWO populated worlds (both of which cannot be self-sustaining, given their tech levels and environments!), I can easily envision a "low end in-system courier service" standardizing on a sub-200 ton J1 5G starship as being the "best compromise" for making deliveries to/from Boughene Station to any other habitation within the star system for shuttling supplies and trade goods between the various outposts scattered around the system ... so if you've ever wanted to run a "Firefly" campaign somewhere within a local star system that doesn't need to be interstellar ... the Boughene System makes for a reasonably decent candidate for a setting (inhospitable, without being perpetually dangerous).
 
That's exactly the system TravellerWorlds generated due to my glitch. Thanks for the troubleshooting (after saving preferences, close the tab and reload by coming back in from TravMap)!

I may have manually reloaded the page and forgotten I'd done so. I was very much in unhappy camper mode until I figured out the issue.
 
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From Boughene Station (in orbit around Komesh), the question of "maneuver or micro-jump?" for delivery transfers to other solar orbits breaks down like so:
Primary Orbit: 0-6 = 1G+ Maneuver
I like the result that the Komesh moon system has 5 planetoids (one of which is Boughene). More reason for people to be there, and more places for defenders to hide (even discounting the possibility of lurking in the gas giant).
 
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6. When you're done: Go back into Your Preferences, then over to the three buttons on the right and select "reset". If you don't, every star system you look at on TravellerMaps afterwards will have its mainworld set as a gas giant satellite...
I go away for a few days and you broke Travellermaps?
 
I go away for a few days and you broke Travellermaps?
Only for myself. Managed to lock in my preferences (in this case, "place mainworld as satellite") while working on a completely different system (Trexalon/D268) and that resulted in "Boughene orbits Komesh in Orbit 0" when I looked there. Still think I'll go with it under Rule of Cool, even if a more likely -- and more stable -- arrangement would be with Boughene at the Star-Komesh L4 or L5 Lagrange point (shares orbit with Komesh, just leading or trailing).
 
A good sized city of people may be hand crafting prototype hi tech?
I'd considered that since Boughene was General Products' (at least regional), HQ, it also had their R&D center. Keeps it out of the way, easier to maintain physical security.

Otherwise, that corporate function would be a a better fit on Rhylanor/Rhylanor due to the tech level.
 
There is another place in the republic that can produce 17 tech? Regina is listed at H in searches, G on map. The obvious research post to me is ancients research as GP produced the Kinunir.
 
There is another place in the republic that can produce 17 tech? Regina is listed at H in searches, G on map. The obvious research post to me is ancients research as GP produced the Kinunir.
Boughene Station is TL-13, and mostly relies on Efate for logistic support since the latter is trade coded industrial.

I know there was a world in this corner of the Marches where the Imperials found aa warehouse full of Black Globe Generators from the Ancients. Don't remember which one, though.

I'm thinking that GP is doing TL-14 and TL-15 research here. Specifically, how to accomplish TL-14+ ends with TL-13 tech and industrial bases.

(See my "a funny thing happened on the way to Collace" thread for examples: LBB2 TL-13 drives in small hulls to get practical J5* -- and impractical J6 by house-rule. The J5 ship is the 600td J5/2G Shugushaag -- or in pdf booklet form from @Hairy Jim DeGriz in THIS POST of the thread -- which showed up briefly in my PbP as the Albatross. The J6 one is a 400Td "6-Boat" described in the "funny thing" thread.)



--------------------------------
* "Practical" is relative, of course. The ship has about 50Td of payload (cargo hold + staterooms + low berths) and each J-5 trip costs nearly a megacredit in operating expenses... but it actually has payload capacity while being rules-compliant.
 
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Yes funny things do happen. I imagine the difference between Imperial patrols and local patrols are quite different. Since there is no imperium my assumption would be the research station is now controlled by a league of activists who bought GP out and make nice money on hand made tech H. We also know nothing about other ancients sites in system, nope.
 
Yes funny things do happen. I imagine the difference between Imperial patrols and local patrols are quite different. Since there is no imperium my assumption would be the research station is now controlled by a league of activists who bought GP out and make nice money on hand made tech H. We also know nothing about other ancients sites in system, nope.
Oh... ok. I think I see where you're coming from.

My ATU is basically OTU with a few minor tweaks (I managed to screw up the Boughene system's layout by not resetting the default preferences in TravellerWorlds after I was done messing with Trexalon/D268 and then just ran with it because it's cooler that way).

In my ATU there is no Ancients presence in the Boughene System, especially not inside the gas giant Komesh.*

In other words, my ATU version of the Boughene System is laid out funny, but it does a better version of trying to explain why most of the system's 600,000 residents live in a giant orbital shopping mall... (The Mongoose adventure that includes it doesn't address just how big Boughene Station has to be, because for its purposes it's just a waypoint on the way to much bigger things.)


--------------------------
*Mongoose's version of that is quite good, especially when viewed as a SF novel crammed into the format of a Traveller Adventure. I just don't want to have its likely outcomes disrupt my variant TU so it's not going to happen.
 
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As a refresher, here's the wiki description.

Man, I'd forgotten how much fun this was! I was going to do a bit more on Collace/D268, but there's still plently of potential here.

Problem is that my version diverges from Mongoose canon, as noted above. Which is fine, but limits where I can go with it. Then again, I'm not sure how far Collace gets tied into the Drinax campaign so maybe I have the same issues there.... LOL
 
I think I'd like to know how it is pronounced first. It looks like "boogyin" to me, and might have a planet-wide series of dance clubs attracting tourists from around the subsector for a fabulous night!
 
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